A third attack this year on an agricultural contractor’s machine yard in the early hours of bank holiday Monday (August 2 ) resulted in the destruction of eight agricultural machines worth €350,000 in a suspicious fire.
The night before (August 1 ), all the subsequently burnt machines had been targeted in a concerted criminal damage attack which saw all their windows broken at the isolated storage facility a mile and a half down a cul-de-sac off the N4 between Mullingar and Kinnegad.
A disused articulated trailer used as a storage facility for oil and 1,000 litres of diesel was untouched in the fire and there were no casualties.
The machinery belonged to contractor Andrew Flynn (28 ) from Coralstown, Kinnegad, who had a teleporter destroyed in a similar incident in January. He estimates the business lost to his company at the height of the harvest to be €50,000.
Gardai in Mullingar have yet to confirm any link between the three attacks, but did say an investigation was “ongoing”.
Mr Flynn was awoken by an explosion around 3am “which made the house shake”. Despite the prompt attendance of two units of the fire service from Mullingar who fought the blazing machinery for almost three hours, he was unable to save a Claas forage harvester, two Massey Ferguson tractors, three mowers, a Claas combined baler/wrapper, and a JCB teleporter.
“It was all my own kit...that’s my livelihood gone - and in August, the busiest time of the year,” said Mr Flynn, who added that his one employee was now also out of a job.
Mr Flynn has also reported an ongoing campaign of lower level vandalism at his yard over the last two years including cut wires, broken windows, water in the fuel tanks, damage to locks, and parts stolen from the machinery.
Mr Flynn, who was married in January and then moved into his house adjacent to the storage yard, told how he had recently moved all his machines from a rented yard to a fenced off enclosure adjacent to his home “because I thought they would be safer”.
“Replacements would be almost impossible now, because of the demands of this time of year,” he said.
Gardai in Mullingar and Kinnegad are appealing for anybody with any information on any of the attacks to contact them on (044 ) 9384000, (044 ) 9375112, or on the confidential Garda hotline at (1800 ) 666111.
