Stone-throwing, pellet guns and driver abuse in the month of March

A pellet gun smashed the window of a bus, and stones were thrown in other instances of harm caused to bus drivers and passengers in the past month in Tallaght.

The recent Local Transport Forum for Tallaght discussed several events which saw a pellet gun wielded at the S8 in Oldbawn and the disruption of services through other anti-social activities throughout the month of March.

The use of the pellet gun led to the window of the travelling S8 to be smashed and Councillor Adam Smyth, who was present at the meeting, described the “unusual” case.

Cllr Smyth said: “It was obviously a very unusual one compared to normal, but it seemed to be just a couple of kids messing.

“But it was still being investigated, from what we were told.”

The forum also discussed the issue of stone-throwing – four instances occurred in the same evening and led to the cancellation of services.

Bus services into Jobstown were cancelled on Tuesday, March 3, due to anti-social behaviour along the route.

The 27 bus did not serve Jobstown, Fortunestown Way and Brookfield Road, and Cheeverstown Road for the remainder of that evening and instead terminated at Killinarden.

“Four of them with Dublin Bus were on the same day in the same location. So, it’s something that was obviously worrying.

“With the bus unions, they were saying, [that] the controls put it in place to pull the service didn’t seem to happen until the fourth incident.

“Two of the incidents were a minute apart, but then the next one was half an hour after that and the bus wasn’t pulled within that half an hour, which was worrying.”

The four buses that were hit by stones were all damaged and taken out of service, on top of the temporary realignment, according to Cllr Smyth.

The Tallaght Central councillor called for stricter controls to ensure that events such as this do not occur again.

One instance of driver abuse and another instance of security assault occurred on the Luas in March also.

Cllr Smyth noted that the issues were dealt with “quite quickly” but stated that more should be done.

“It’s definitely something that we need to have a better scope on and if it can be identified even earlier, if there’s somebody on the transport causing issues, that something’s done before an assault actually takes place.”

Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.