‘Prolific’ criminal expelled from Ireland

A ROMANIAN national, described as “one of Clare’s most prolific criminals” has been “expelled from the country”. He becomes the first such criminal in Clare to be the subject of expulsion from Ireland by ministerial order.

Clare’s Chief Superintendent, John Kerin, revealed at the county’s Joint Policing Committee meeting on Monday that gardaí had been successful in receiving a ministerial order to have one of “Clare’s most prolific criminals” expelled from the country.
The Clare Champion has learned this is the first time that such an order has been made in County Clare with respect of a criminal and is a strategy being utilised by gardaí to tackle crime in the county.
“It is being used as a strategy to deter crime. I believe other applications have been forwarded for removal orders. This process allows the State to exclude individuals for either a number of years or months if they are behaving in a disorderly or criminal manner,” Chief Superintendent John Kerin outlined.
The individual in question had been a notorious burglar in the county and a senior garda source confirmed that as a result of the repatriation of this man to his native country last month, there has been a decrease in burglaries in the county.
“Now that he is gone from Clare, we can see a reduction in crime and this has helped the situation greatly. It would have had some impact on burglaries in the county. His expulsion has definitely played a significant part in the reduction of burglaries in Clare,” a senior garda said.
“This is the first time we’ve had an order like this in Clare. It is not something that’s been done before and is not very common nationally,” he added.
Speaking at the Joint Policing Committee meeting held in Kildysart on Monday, Chief Superintendent Kerin outlined there were a number of foreign nationals involved in criminal enterprises in the county and in one such case they had reached a long term solution.
“We had one man expelled from the country recently. We got the minister to sign an order to exclude him from this country for a number of years. He was one of the most prolific criminals we had in Clare. It was dealt with through our immigration office,” Chief Superintendent Kerin said.
At the same meeting, the chief superintendent outlined that Clare’s garda figures for burglaries show a reduction of 3% or nine crimes on last year, while nationally, the trend in burglaries is up by 10%. However, it was explained that this reduction could not be attributed to the removal order of this one individual, as he has only left the jurisdiction in the last month.