Irish shopping centre forced to close as youths attack…

Irish shopping centre forced to close as youths attack shoppers with eggs and run riot in shops

An Irish shopping centre was forced to close its doors on Friday after a gang of youths attacked shoppers with eggs whilst running riot through the mall.

Customers in Eyre Square Shopping Centre in Co Galway were left shocked after around 10 to 15 groups of young people 'bombarded' shops as security struggled to control the situation.

The incident saw groups of teens aged 11 and upwards run through the shopping centre shouting, spilling people's drinks and sitting on the floor 'unwilling to move'.

In a letter to Galway Bay FM on Monday morning on Keith Finnegan's Galway Talks show , a spokesperson for Eyre Square Shopping Centre said: "Our central team struggled to maintain multiple gangs of youths of 11 years upwards, in groups of 10 to 15 who bombarded the Eyre Square Shopping Centre and running through the malls on both levels at high speed."

The centre added that the groups "were running into customers, shouting and running at high speed and sitting on the mall floors, refusing and proving difficult to move when asked to by security," reports Galway Beo.

They said: "Our centre team struggled to control their out of order behaviour, and members of the public were badly affected by the incident."

The incident then escalated as the groups began throwing eggs and ketchup at members of the public, which the shopping centre said was "not acceptable".

The shop claimed: "In our efforts to remove them, one of the gang's eggs were thrown at our security which again is not acceptable. We made several attempts to report to An Garda Siochana, and again the response was too slow.

The shopping centre was forced to close early at 7pm due to the behaviour, as it "greatly impacted stores in the centre, which should have been fully open until 9pm."

Councillors Michael Crowe and Eddie Hoare spoke to Galway Bay FM saying that they were concerned and outraged about the incident.

Mr Crowe told Keith Finnegan on Galway Talks: "It was obviously an organised event that started at around 4pm and progressed from there."

Crowe said the incident was "quite frightening" for shoppers and added: "The concentration has to go on the youths themselves. It's fair to say they know the difference between right and wrong. They were running riot through the shops and hitting people in the centre - that's a further danger to people who were in the centre at the time. The security staff in the centre weren't able to control it."