'Horrendous' dumping at Tipperary RehabCare centre is attracting rats and mice

The dumping of household refuse and other rubbish near a centre that caters for people with intellectual disabilities has been desribed as “horrendous”.

Colette Basquille, whose 22 year-old daughter Sarah is a service user at the RehabCare centre at Bridgewater House in Clonmel, says that the problem is getting worse and is a health hazard.

“What’s going on is just horrendous”, she says.

“The rubbish is attracting rats and mice from the nearby riverbank, as well as wild cats, and they are all tearing at the bags”, she says.

She had recently seen a cat eating a dead animal, although she was unsure if it was a rat, a mouse or another cat.

 She says that her daughter has been attending the centre for the past two years.

“Her immune system is low enough without the risk that this rubbish is posing to her health”, she says.

Above - Service users of RehabCare’s Bridgewater House centre in Clonmel, who are up in arms over the illegal dumping of rubbish near the centre near the Gas House Bridge. 

Some of the service users are wheelchair-bound and the bags of rubbish sometimes block the path that they use to access the centre.

As well as household rubbish, she says that discarded furniture is also being dumped there.

However she says that many of the nearby residents are using the bins provided to dispose of their rubbish.

Council staff cleared the rubbish last week but more dumping took place this week.

“Anyone with any consideration for other people wouldn’t do that”, she added. 

Miriam Cleary, community services manager with RehabCare, agreed that the problem was worsening and was a potential health hazard for the 32 service users, eight staff and four others who worked on Tús and Community Employment schemes.

Many of the services users had contacted the council, requesting that action would be taken.

She says the bins were emptied every week but the cameras in the area needed to be utilised in an attempt to stamp out the problem.

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