Housing Minister Condemns Student House Destruction In Limerick

Wexford’s local radio station

There are renewed calls for social media companies to clamp down on videos depicting criminal activity, following the vandalism of a house in a student populated area of Limerick.

Videos circulating online show a group of young people destroying the property in College Court and its contents.

The house, which was vacant at the time, has now been boarded up due to the significant damage.

Housing Minister James Browne says social media platforms shouldn’t be allowing this type of content to remain online:

"Criminal damage is totally unacceptable in any property and I expect processes will be put in place to deal with those situations.

"I don’t want to say anything in particular in relation to this incident because I don’t want to prejudice any ongoing investigations but what I will say is that this is a rare event from students."

The Wexford TD says it doesn’t represent the behavior of most young people.

He says social media is resulting in people engaging in criminal behavior for likes and laughs:

"Unfortunately we see that these incidents are happening purely for ’likes’, for attention.

"We’ve also seen it with some very tragic circumstances in other areas where they’re doing these things just for the social media attention.

"The companies need to really step up and take responsibility here for what they’re allowing on their sites.

"It’s driving fear, driving anger and it is encouraging this kind of activity which is totally unacceptable."

That report was funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.