"They don't have the facilities"

pgj2015

Why is this excuse always used when trying to come up with an explanation for tear away kids looting, criminal damage, fighting, taking drugs or joyriding etc?

I grew up in the sticks, we had zero facilities as well and we didn't do any of the above.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334261/they-dont-have-the-facilities

You can't compare the sticks to the inner city though

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707131#Comment_121707131

not to be funny here, but why?

pgj2015

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707131#Comment_121707131

why not?

we had neighbours and they were the same age as myself. so its not like we lived on our own, we could have done all the things the youngsters in my op did if we wanted to.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334261/they-dont-have-the-facilities

In the sticks, did you have fields to play in? A bog to walk around? Trees to climb? Frogs to catch?

What if you couldn't go play in the fields because there aren't any? Or the ones that are there are covered in burned out cars or scumbags selling gear? What if the closest you ever got to a bog was the outside toilet shared between you and the other 4 families in the rundown Georgian house you called home? Where are the trees to climb if you grew up in Pearse Street flats? Merrion Square? That you aren't allowed in because the park ranger doesn't want the riff raff ruining it for the suits on their lunch from Government Buildings. What if it was rats you had instead of frogs? And what if there was 200 families living in a 300 sq. metre block of flats with nothing to do because you're not allowed off the balcony due to the neglect and poverty around you?

Were you raised by junkie parents or alcoholics? Were you rearing your younger siblings at the same time you were struggling with "text and tests 3"? Did you have to wear your school uniform at the weekends because your auldfella pawned the fecking washing machine and you've no clean clothes? Have you ever been refused entry to a pub/nightclub because of your accent? Or refused a job interview because they saw your address? Or gotten the shite kicked out of you by some redneck plough-jockey fresh from Templemore who hasn't got the balls to tackle the real filth in the area, so he takes it out on the kids playing with a burst football because there'll be no repercussions?

People who spout this crap like you've posted have zero clue what they're talking about. Stop trying to judge that of which you have no experience. And stop punching down. Access to better facilities and proper, structured sports and leisure activities does wonders for kids. There are countless studies which show this. Idle hands do the devil's work.

Sure, there are people who use this as an excuse (considerably fewer nowadays, thank fcuk) for their own malicious intentions. But for every one of them there's 100 budding hurlers who live too far away from a pitch to ever get into it properly. And another 100 gymnasts who'll never put on a leotard because the playground equipment has been dilapidated for 12years and is full of knackers selling 10 spots from their y-fronts.

If you tell a kid they can grow up to be anything, then they will.

If you tell them they will grow up to be nothing, then they will too.

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334261/they-dont-have-the-facilities

Socialists want to blame the State and society. They don't want to blame the children/teenagers or their parents.

They believe that these criminals don't have any agency - they are oppressed, so they react with violence.

It's the same with travellers life outcomes - it's always society's fault.

Yeah Right

Also, if you think there's no drugs, looting, criminal activity, fighting or joyriding in the sticks, you must be taking the piss.

Every town and village has a few bad eggs. Multiply the population by 1,000 and now you've a few thousand bad eggs.

Geuze

In the 1950s, my mother had no elec, and could not afford some textbooks.

She walked 1km to another house to borrow textbook, and studied by candlelight.

She did not resort to crime.

Poverty is not an excuse for crime.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707217#Comment_121707217

WTF has socialism got to do with anything? Talk about shoehorning your own nonsense in so you can give out about it. Reacting with violence is the dictionary definition of agency, dumbass.

"Hurrr durr socialism baddd".......is the reserve of right-wing shitebags who've been reading too much Trump and consider themselves Conservatives.

Geuze

My apologies.

Many old-style socialists have more sense, and would blame the children / parents.

Kurooi

What you're missing is that those kids don't have happy homes. So the hope is that they will find a school, a sport, a community center - anything to rally behind. If the only influence and the only thing they witness is their home life, be it daddy bringing in stolen bikes or mommy overdosing, then they will become their parents.

That said, the facilities thing is indeed an excuse, not for the children but for the adults in charge , it's effectively asking for more money and avoiding responsibility. We should be holding government and councils accountable for this behavior and this trend.

Greyfox

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707207#Comment_121707207

The problem with the legal system in Ireland is everybody who breaks the law can create a sob story with some of these points but the reality is the majority of criminals didnt have junkie/alcoholic parents and nowhere to play, many criminals come from decent backgrounds.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707225#Comment_121707225

Well done for her. Tell me, would she have been allowed to walk that 1km distance if it was from Summerhill to Sherriff Street in the middle of the 80s during the largest heroin epidemic this country has ever seen? Would your granny have let her walk past all the junkies and brothels to go and study? How would she have studied by candlelight with no book?

Poverty begets more poverty. And poor people make poor decisions.

The lure of 'easy' money via selling drugs/your body is just too much for some, so they resort to criminal activities. It would benefit you greatly if you could spot the difference between those who choose a life of crime and those who are thrust into it by the actions of others. I'd a friend in school who was sleeping rough at the weekends because his ma was letting all sorts of weirdos into the gaff to ride her for drugs. He left school 18 months shy of his inter cert and ran away when one of the dirty auld lads tried to ride him for a few bob extra. Didn't see him for 25 years until I spotted him begging for coins in Temple Bar one night.

You should ask your ma what she'd have done in that situation.

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707207#Comment_121707207

Great post. Thanks.

There is an incredible amount of money sloshing around that no kid should be left in a hopeless situation.

You see billions being pissed away in this country making some people and their kids very rich.

It's the opposite of the spectrum, kids who have all the opportunities because their parents or their parents have/had useless, pointless, even dangerous careers, that destroy society, but careers that pay well and that are encouraged and facilitates by the economy.

SEPT 23 1989

It’s all down to the parents

no amount of money thrown at them makes any difference

a lot of us who had very little money and very little to do as children turned out ok

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707252#Comment_121707252

Then take the children away from the degenerate parents.

Scummers who scum should not be allowed to rear more scum.

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707207#Comment_121707207

I live in the Tallaght area and there are tonnes of facilities. There's plenty of parks with pitches, there's a leisure centre, public pool and gym, loads of different sports clubs and the mountains are a few minutes cycle from most of Tallaght where you can climb as many trees as you want or play in the bog. The place is still full of feral kids and anti social behaviour.

The majority of people from disadvantaged areas are hard working people, these people can somehow not become scumbags in disadvantaged areas yet the scumbags from the same areas claim they have no facilities and destroy everything provided for the area.

MrMusician18

I haven't actually heard the facilitieees line trotted out in years tbf

pgj2015

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707601#Comment_121707601

I heard it a couple of times last week, people from those areas in Dublin were saying it, I think its just a line people say because they have heard other people say it.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707148#Comment_121707148

I grew up in the sticks too. We had no end of things to do. Nothing formal and few things needing facilities. Kick football or play hurling down the green, go cycling, hanging out, go to tge woods. It's different to the city. Very little of what we did could be harmful but cities are so busy that things have to work a certain way. Children roaming about is a problem in a city, but it's not in the country.

In the country you pretty much know everyone and everyone knows you. So you talk to older people and you wouldn't really do anything to cause trouble. There wasnt animosity or fear of us as Children. We weren't treated as bad eggs and we didnt behave like bad eggs. Children in cities need facilities so they can burn energy like we did, but without causing disruption.

Strumms

If you bought them all a PS5…. “They don’t have enough games”

If you built pitches, floodlights etc…. “But they don’t have a gym”

If you bought them a week long holiday annually …. “But the weather wasn’t great / there weren’t enough facilities ”

some people like living in excuseville… it’s more convenient than taking responsibility for one’s own life and actions.

I live near a so called ’deprived’ / ‘working’ (cough) class area, all you hear is moaning and governments should be doing XYZ.. yet within 2-3 kilometres…

swimming pools x2

indoor soccer x2

parks - multiple

gyms - multiple

GAA clubs x4, soccer clubs x3 , tennis x2, cricket x1, basketball x2, volleyball, snooker halls x2…..

education opportunities and nothing third world…..so…

sprucemoose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121708428#Comment_121708428

i agree with most of what you say about the countryside

i disagree that it doesnt apply to cities. smaller communities within a particular area of a city can be incredibly tight knit

Speedsie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707601#Comment_121707601

Outside the Kilmore West Recreation centre on Oscar Traynor road. Not sure how long it's there's or if it's still there (image from Google maps), but I passed it daily when I visited my mother in Beaumont for a few weeks last year.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121708638#Comment_121708638

I wouldn't know how much about that so I'll take your word for it.. I live in a suburb for the last decade and I know the people in tge few doors immediately around me, and I've chatted to some more who live nearby, but we're in no way connected (except one immediate neighbour. We've been in each others houses).

Not to dispute your experience, I just haven't seen it.

In the country there's a set cast, not many people just passing through. My village had one pub so the adults knew each other (and gossip about the ones who were absent) and one school so the children all knew each other.

My point is that you couldn't get away with anything more than mild mischief without your parents finding out. So we roamed around, played games, did whatever we like up to and including mild mischief, and returned home exhausted.

Princess Calla

Change the word facilities to parents and you'll find the problem/solution.

In many cases it's a generational issue. Kids have a crappy childhood, don't know how /what a functional parent should behave....they go on and have their own kids with absolutely no skillset on how to bring children up. Plus the age for first time parents in these areas is usually very young so basically kids rearing kids.

There's often very little emphasis on education or schooling.....I seriously doubt the majority of parents are sitting down helping with homework etc.

You will hear of success stories from these areas but if you talk to them the key factor in their story is their parents. The parents who made sure they went to school, the parents who wouldn't let them hang around with the local gang, the parents that got them involved in whatever sport. Etc.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334261/they-dont-have-the-facilities

...you missed out, tis some craic!

whisky_galore

We mustn't blame people for their own sh1tty life choices. Oh no...

Hardly a month goes by without a bunch of sh1tbag kids with "no faciliteeees" fcuking up other kids' clubhouses, playing fields or playgrounds.

In ballincollig there's local ballbags that take delight in setting fire to play areas and park benches on a regular basis...you know "facilities".

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709445#Comment_121709445

thank god our educational and health care systems are well capable of meeting particular peoples needs now, so we dont have to endure such outcomes.....

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709486#Comment_121709486

They're not short of money, they're not going around in rags like an urchin out of Dickens. They got the best gear and tech. They take and give nothing back. Intergenerational breeding of scum.

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707583#Comment_121707583

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that having these facilities close to home guarantees you'll have a load of goody-two-shoes walking around the place. It just makes it more likely and helps Pointing out that other places that DO have facilities and also have scumbags is completely reductionist. Kids get up to mischief everywhere. Without somewhere to play, they'll inevitably get bored and start playing where they're not supposed to be playing. If the place is a dump, they'll treat it like a dump. If the place is nice, they'll be less likely to treat it like a dump.

When Tallaght was first being developed, the place was a wasteland with nothing but open land. There were SFA amenities for kids, and most of what you describe only came about after the locals caused uproar.......hell weren't there campaigns to get shops to open at one stage? It is also much, much safer than it was, even 20 years ago. Plenty of kids don't become scumbags DESPITE the lack of stuff to do, it's just one way to channel energy that could end up being focused on the wrong thing. Kellie Harrington was turned away from inner city boxing clubs because she was a girl. She kept at it and we all saw how that ended up. Where would she be now without a combination of the club existing, then allowing girls in, her parents doing a good job at rearing her and a healthy combination of both talent and luck?

Plus, the leisure centre, public pool and gym, loads of different sports clubs all require money and/or membership to go to. If you can't afford to go to them, they might as well not be there. How can you cycle out to the mountains if you've no bike? Try asking a single parent to hand over a few bob every month when they haven't got enough to feed themselves. What you're saying is ridiculous when you look at it from that point of view......."why is that guy sleeping on the streets, when there's a hotel right over there?".

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709293#Comment_121709293

I'm afraid you're displaying your own ignorance, here.

This isn't someone justifying anti-social behaviour due to the fact that there's nothing for them to do, as described in the OP ......."sure they've no facilities Joe, what're they s'posed to do!!!". This is a well established club highlighting the fact that kids are getting changed in the cold and dark with no hot water and a handful of toilets between the lot of them. They were promised funding for an all-weather pitch years ago and the money has yet to materialise. They have to keep cancelling matches and training when the regular pitches get bogged down or waterlogged. Places like this are the solution, not the problem.

You'd do well to educate yourself on such simple matters before displaying your ignorance as you try to score points on an internet forum. It's as easy as typing "Kilmore Celtic facilities" into google.

Jequ0n

The only facility needed is a mobile sterilisation unit

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707207#Comment_121707207

Whatever about the inner city, every kid growing up in Kilinarden, Jobstown, Laydwell, Corduff, Finglas, Ballymun and dozens of other places up and down this country had the best of both worlds- all that's going on in the city but living within spitting distance of the country. Half of their estates were made up of large green spaces.

We still heard all this No Faciliities so I Rob Cars nonsense beloved by schwars like Lynn Ruane.

Youre also neglecting the amount of facilities that working class communities in Dublin had that simply often didn't exist in rural Ireland- parks, playgrounds, soccer teams, boxing clubs. Until the 2010s the Irish national team came almost exclusively from Dublin, Cork and the odd larger regional town like Drogheda and Dundalk, and there's good reason for that- facilities.

csirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121709293#Comment_121709293

Sign might be ironic!

The building behind it is the pigeon club. Immediately beside it is a community centre. On the other side is a boxing club. Directly across the road is a swimming pool (Northside SC) and some soccer pitches. Its a stones throw from Parnells GAA, a soccer coaching centre (Oscar Traynor) and a public library.its within walking distance of Morton Stadium (Clonliffe Harriers Athletics), a Leisreplex and 2 x multiplex cinemas.

csirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121710425#Comment_121710425

But there's a full sized all-weather soccer pitch c.200m from that sign?

Sunny Disposition

Good facilities do keep one or two on the straight and narrow who would have gone wrong otherwise.

But that's not really what makes the difference. It's good or bad parenting that makes the difference in almost all cases. I say that having been involved in a coaching role in West Belfast and in rural Clare. There were little scrotes in both, bad parenting always the common factor.

Ray Palmer

Lived close to Coolock growing up and we had to go there because they had the facilities we didn't all provided by the council. In the private estates we had nothing until it was privately funded by the community.

The local kids would be setting fires beside the sport facilities and often damaging the playing fields and buildings. They had the facilities

I went to school with these people and their sense of morality and empathy was just not there. By no means am I saying everyone was bad in Coolock but there were just enough bad people to ruin it for others. In primary school it was one thing as kids can be just learning but as a teenager you get a moral compass. Still don't understand people who steal from people they know which for some in school was completely normal.

In primary school I remember the head master give out about the pupils spitting on the way to school. Walk out of school to go home and there are parents spitting outside the school. Kids are going to follow their parents.

The funny thing is currently Lidl are running ads for female GAA at the moment and they seem to be saying they need facilities and complaining about "inequality" in sport

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121711522#Comment_121711522

One that is belonging to them? That they can use when they require it for matches and training etc? You sure about that?

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121711433#Comment_121711433

Again, talk about missing the point.

They're not complaining that there's no facilities AT ALL. That's not the point of the sign.

The building behind it is the pigeon club......which is useless to a football team that cannot play in the inter.

Immediately beside it is a community centre......no good for a football team

On the other side is a boxing club......not a football club

directly across the road is a swimming pool (Northside SC).......underwater football?

and some soccer pitches.......finally, something football related. These are the pitches they're talking about that are unusable during the wet weather though.

Its a stones throw from Parnells GAA....who are famous for allowing foreign sports be played on their grounds.....

a soccer coaching centre (Oscar Traynor)......ran by a private company who are unrelated to the football team, and unlikely to allow them to use their premises for free

and a public library.........'twould be a fierce quiet game of ball, I'd say.

Its within walking distance of Morton Stadium (Clonliffe Harriers Athletics), a Leisreplex and 2 x multiplex cinemas..........which all have SFA to do with Kilmore Celtic or their plight.

Did you even read the link posted?

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121711288#Comment_121711288

At the risk of repeating myself here, poor people cannot afford food for their kids, never mind subs for a soccer or hurling team, boxing club etc. They also can't afford boots, gear, gloves, hurleys etc.

The parks and playgrounds are the type of things that these communities were lacking or which were left in a state of disrepair/neglect so as to be practically unusable. Mountjoy Square was the nearest park to me growing up, but it was full of junkballs and alcos hiding in the bushes. You couldn't go near it as a kid. You'd either get robbed or battered or both. Nowadays when I pass by, it's full of families having picnics and groups of foreigners playing basketball etc. because they tidied it up and removed a lot of the hedging that the scum used to hide in. Those folks would have been thumped around in the 80s or 90s. Even St. Stephen's Green was a no go area after dark until relatively recently.

Stuff that's free, easy and safe to use, and not allowed to rot and fester is exactly what they were crying out for when they were complaining about the lack of facilities, for the most part.

csirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121712089#Comment_121712089

The vast majority of local soccer clubs dont have dressing rooms or all weather pitches - so nothing unusual there.

The dressing room issue could be solved by using the ones in the community centre. The all weather pitch is owned by the amateur soccer league, so hardly a commercial arrangement.

The KC situation higjhlights an interesting problem - every small club wants its own exclusive facilities. This is unsustainable for the taxpayer. What we have here is a local politics issue whereby some clubs have and some clubs havent got access to existing taxpayer funded or own facilities in the community. The solution is to petition for or negotiate access and for any new facilies to be for the community, not a single club/organisatiion.

Speedsie

I was only pointing out to mrmusican that there is still an out cry for facilities, and only found out it was at a recreation facility when I looked at Google maps to find an image. Great to see there's a pigeon club there, working with animals is great to engender empathy.

To be honest I didn't pay that much attention to the sign, other than seeing it when I'm traffic on the road during the weeks I had go to Beaumont daily to see my mother, she's normally hospitalised in either Naas or Tallaght so it's a bit out of my way. Did visit the Stardust memorial park though, it was lovely I thought.

Sorry though if I caused any offence and I'll look into the facilities in the area further.

The converse of this argument must be, there are all sorts of early support workers, youth workers, family support workers, before and after-school care, school meals, special needs assistance, education assistance support, schools with good facilities the amount of anti-social behavior should be declining?

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121712161#Comment_121712161

At the risk of repeating myself here, poor people cannot afford food for their kids, never mind subs for a soccer or hurling team, boxing club etc. They also can't afford boots, gear, gloves, hurleys etc.

Most of the people destroying community facilities aren't poor. They have enough money for booze/smokes/drugs and are going around in Canada Goose jackets on expensive electric bikes.. Poor people generally respect stuff because they know the value of money.

Feisar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121707302#Comment_121707302

Excellent post(s). To be honest I'd have been of the frame of mind that I grew up with feck all facilities and my friends and I didn't turn into toerags so it's on the individuals involved. My Dad grew up poor, e.g. a snared/shot rabbit meant another day eating meat in the week. He'd have never thought of himself as poor though as he'd say everyone was in the same boat. I think the issue can arise from being in a situation where there are have's and have nots possibly?

lmk123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334261/they-dont-have-the-facilities

Just an excuse for wasters to blame everyone but themselves

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334261/they-dont-have-the-facilities

My granny smoked eighty fags a day and lived to age ninety five. Why is this excuse about smoking causing cancer always used?

jack of all

I live pretty close to what is considered a disadvantaged area and my own children attended the local primary school there which is a DEIS school. There was plenty of money pumped into that area in the last 20 years, with lovely new community facilities, big improvement in the social housing stock, new school buildings etc. The place has really improved from when I remember it as a teenager growing up. However, as the years have gone on you do notice the same old patterns- nice new green areas and what is considered the public realm is continually littered, walls graffitied, public lighting and litter bins damaged and a general look of neglect. Most of the people that live in this area are decent, some are hardworking and most are law abiding. However there is a core goup who are not, it is inter generational and no matter what money or resources are allocated the outcome is the same. So, to my mind it's down to poor parenting in the main, one set of poor parents raises the next generation of poor parents. A lot of kids in these areas come from homes that have never had an adult that worked. A bit of a cliche, but it is true- when I was collecting my children from school here I was always amazed how most of these parents always had a better phone than me! Money is not the answer here, better parenting and education is. The town in general (like most in the country now) has seen massive improvement in the facilities available, children really have so much now, compared to the bad old 80s, yet we have more issues with anti social behaviour, crime and drug use, why?

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121712762#Comment_121712762

Cool story, bro......It's almost as if I said that the people who destroy the stuff are poor, isn't it? Almost.

What about the people who use those community facilities? Are they poor?

Sunny Disposition

Poverty does exist, but it's not like it was decades ago. Social welfare is very generous now. Plus any able bodied person can work as much as they like in this current economy. There's no reason for anyone without a disability not to have a job.

The root causes for scummy behaviour and for unemployment in a booming economy are the same, and are harder to tackle than a lack of facilities. If parents set a good example kids won't be troublesome and will grow into adults who can and will hold down jobs. If they have a different example then things won't go so well.

Lack of faciliites has nothing to do with it, a lot of society's problems could be solved if things were that simple.

tayto lover

In the 1950's many children in our area went to school without shoes. They were lucky to have a bottle of milk and a piece of bread for their lunch.

I saw lads playing schoolboy football wearing wellingtons, the same ones they wore to school and mass.

Nowadays everyone wants a bus to collect them for school, school meals and a Sports Centre beside their door.