Dundalk JPC: Boy racers along the border are "a fatality waiting to happen"

The issue of cross border boy racers was raised by Sinn Fein's Councillor Antoin Watters at Wednesday’s public meeting of the Dundalk JPC.

He said that every Thursday and Friday night he was alerted to boy racer activity along the Louth border, he said that despite efforts on both sides of the border nothing has changed and that residents in these areas had lost faith in anything being done about the issue. 

“It’s a fatality waiting to happen,” he said.

“We’re being pushed from north to south when what we need is a straight line approach and a couple of big operations to nip it in the bud before we’re all wondering why didn’t we do something.” 

In response Chief Supt Charlie Armstrong said:

“We do recognise the inconvenience and potentially how serious it [boy racers] is. 

“There is an operation every Thursday night were dedicated patrols are put out to target that activity and those patrols are dedicated patrols which means that they’re not part of a response to ordinary calls, they’re put in by properly trained CBD3  (Competency Based Driving) trained drivers that are deployed specifically to deal with boy racers.

“The Chief Superintendent has given a commitment that they will continue.”

“There's joint agency operations with our colleagues in the PSNI and they are ongoing, so we will keep them going.”