'What kind of person steals from a charity?'

There was widespread disgust after almost €6,000 worth of a high-end landscaping equipment used by a local Tidy Towns group was stolen from a secure lock-up earlier this month.
“There is a real sense of disappointment about this. What hurts most is whoever carried out this, was working with local information,” Barry Wilson of the Belturbet Tidy Towns group told The Anglo-Celt this week.
Gardaí are appealing to the public and anyone with information in relation to the break-in at a storage unit at the old Railway Station, believed to be around midnight on Sunday, October 9.
Gardaí are already aware that a white van, seen acting suspiciously in the vicinity of the Church of the Immaculate of Conception, may have been used by the perpetrators.
An Ariens tractor mower and Honda self-drive push mower were both taken in the raid.
The SuperValu 2016 National Tidy Towns Competition adjudicators praised the local group’s work towards “social inclusion”, increasing their marks to 274.
Howeve,r Mr Wilson says the theft has brought all “back down to earth with a bang”.
“We’re just gobsmacked by what has happened,” adds Mr Wilson, one of a 10-member strong committee who host regular meetings and clean-ups in the local areas. “Stealing from a charity, what kind of person does that? There is a real sense of disappointment now. The Tidy Towns committee is all volunteer work, we give of our time freely to give something back to the community. We take pride in the town and how it looks and for some scumbag to come along and do what they’ve done, I mean, words don’t describe how low an act that is!”
The local committee, which runs a charity shop at the Railway Station each month and hosts regular fundraising events, faces an uphill battle in paying for the replacement of the equipment stolen.
Mr Wilson is hopeful that there may yet be some shred of human dignity buried within the culprits, enough at least to see the expensive tools returned safely.
“We hold out hope, however slim it may be, that we’ll get it back. Whoever did it will find it very difficult to sell these on. We are dedicated to the town. This won’t stop us in our tracks. We would be hopeful, and let it be known, that
we would encourage the return of the equipment to a safe location and let that be the end of it,” Mr Wilson told the Celt.
Anyone with information is asked to contact local gardaí in Ballyconnell on 0499525580.