FRUSTRATION AND CONCERN OVER VISITORS
GARDAÍ SAY THE NUMBERS ARRIVING IN AREA ARE LOW
THE arrival of holiday home owners in the Fethard-on-Sea area over recent weeks has sparked concern that the coronavirus may spread in the area.
Gardaí are saying the numbers arriving are small, but locals believe they run into the hundreds.
Superintendent John McDonald said some people stopped at garda checkpoints across the area have been told to return to their primary residence, adding that, by and large, most people are complying fully with Government and medical advice and are only travelling for essential work and shopping purposes.
Fethard businessman Graham Doyle said: ‘My mind boggles; I just can’t comprehend the thinking and the rationale behind what is going on. I know the laws are so hard to enforce it’s just you’d hope people would have more common sense and empathy towards other people in these smaller villages and, by and large, are doing everything they’re supposed to. It’s pure selfishness.’
A SIGN on the door of Fethard Post Office reads: ‘Local People Only’.
Throughout the peninsula residents have been on high alert since reports circulated last week that people were travelling from across the country to spend their coronavirus lockdown in the locality.
Fearing a situation where Covid-19 virus could spread like wildfire through the community, people were outraged to see their worst fears confirmed and new faces populate the lanes and the village centre in Fethard-on-Sea.
With camper van and caravan parks closed, the holidaymakers have travelled to their summer homes, as they do every Easter, seemingly choosing to have their lockdown in the sunny south east.
David Dillon of Dillon’s Londis in Fethard-on-Sea said some people arrived in the area before gardaí were given increased powers to force people to return their primary residences, as and from Wednesday afternoon.
‘ They have come and they shouldn’t be coming. I believe the guards should have the powers to either remove them or make them stay where they are. If the guards tell them go home that solves the problem at our end, but if they tell them stay it doesn’t.’
Mr Dillon said people within Co Wexford have been adhering to the medical advice.
‘If they are going by the guidelines too, they should be self isolating and stay in the same place for 14 days. My main concern is for my staff as they have to be dealing with this on a daily basis. They are getting people in and out as quickly as possible.
‘We can’t not serve them. Our staff have a hard enough job. The people arriving have to have food.
Mr Dillon said An Garda Siochana need to ‘decide if they are going to send them home or keep them here, and if they do, they have to make it clear that “essential services” are for everyone.’
He said anyone who has travelled to the area over the past week has broken the law and should be contacted to either tell them to go home or to not travel beyond a 2km radius of their holiday home.
‘It’s total disrespect for the area at this time. We all have families and we all are making sacrifices. If anyone is living beside a holiday home that has recently been occupied; surely they can talk to them.’
Mr Dillon said people feel as if the area is back at the start of the coronavirus again.
‘It’s very difficult and twice as difficult if it comes back on the frontline staff. This virus doesn’t make allowances for what particular county you are from; we are all in this together. They shouldn’t have come, full stop!
‘It’s so disappointing when Wexford is doing so well. Now we have a new scenario where we have a bunch of people from different counties back in the village again and we don’t know to what extent they are following the advice. We feel like we’re back at square one at the start of the virus again. Our worst fears are being confirmed.’
Speaking on Wednesday, Fethard-on-Sea postmistress Bríd Noonan Barry said: ‘I see a lot of faces here that shouldn’t be here. Even though the guards have these new powers now, it’s all come too late. Once the sun started shining they feel every day is a bank holiday in Fethard and people are here already.’
She said: ‘It’s very disappointing. You would really expect that people would be more responsible, for themselves as well and for the people here.’
She said the people who have arrived spend weeks, if not months, in the area every year.
‘What is wrong in going out in your own back garden and enjoying the sunshine there? It’s too late now. A friend told me she saw five or six cars arrive in the village. One had a Dublin reg and a roof rack with surfboards.
‘Last weekend could have just as well been a bank holiday on the beaches. If I lived in a built-up area in Dublin and if I or my partner weren’t working and owned a holiday home, paying LPT on it, down here, I would feel aggrieved, but I think I would have respect for the people of the Hook area.’
She said some people may have rationalised the journey by saying to themselves that they wouldn’t shop local but once they arrived they found they had no choice but to.
‘With the best will in the world they will find themselves in our little shop,’ she said.
Ruairi Harpur, General Manager at Wallace’s of Wellingtonbridge, said the situation is markedly different in that village. Although some holidaymakers have been seen at Wallace’s SuperValu, he said the vast majority of shoppers are locals.
Mr Harpur said business has been down compared to other bank holiday weekends, adding that there is a strong garda presence in the village, with checkpoints from morning until night.
‘We have a huge amount of Dublin people living in the area.
I SEE A LOT OF FACES HERE THAT SHOULDN’T BE HERE. EVEN THOUGH THE GUARDS HAVE THESE NEW POWERS NOW, IT’S ALL COME TOO LATE
The staff would know them as regulars. We have queuing in place at the moment as a health and safety measure so there are a lot of people standing in queues who are living near Dublin people who are living only down the road from them in some cases.’