People are flocking to Galway to beg because they know there are “easy pickings” to be had during the summer months, a judge has warned.
Judge Mary Fahy said the people involved are not homeless and they are not migrants before she issued a warning at Galway District Court this week that they face a month in prison if convicted of begging.
The judge made the comments while dealing with Romanian national, Marian Avadanei (26), of no fixed abode, who pleaded guilty before the court this week to blocking the passage of pedestrians while begging at Wolfe Tone Bridge on Wednesday afternoon, July 5 last.
Defence solicitor, Michael Cunningham, who was assigned to represent Avadanei under the Free Legal Aid Scheme, said his client had come Galway two weeks ago immediately after arriving in Ireland.
His client had instructed him (through a Romanian interpreter appointed by the court) that he was homeless and sleeping rough in Eyre Square, accompanied by his grandmother, aunt and other members of his family.
Judge Fahy observed the man had only been in Ireland for two weeks and he was already before a court for begging. She told him begging was not permissible in this country and it carried a one-month prison term on conviction.
Hearing Avadanei was sleeping in Eyre Square, Judge Fahy asked him what was the point of him and his family coming to Ireland with no place to live and with no means to support themselves.
The interpreter said the man had told her he and his family had been brought to Ireland by a man from their village and were put to work with no pay.
“Who put them to work? Did they go to the Gardaí and report the people who brought them here?” Judge Fahy asked.
Avadanei said he wasn’t able (to report them).
See full court report in this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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