NAAS, 16 October 2002: Residents of the Ballymore Road in Naas say this year has seen an explosion in the rat population around the lakes area amenity area near Naas Hospital. Local resident Brendan Drewitt (above) has repeatedly warned people to stay away from the edge of the lake, where the rats are.
He says they are nesting under the banks and in the long grass and rushes, even in the dyke area alongside the Hospital wall. They can also be seen swimming across the lakes.
Children feeding ducks or families sitting at the picnic tables are in danger of meeting up with rats or being contaminated by their urine leading to the dreaded Weil’s disease.
Recently, he witnessed a child dropping a beaker on the grassy bank where he’d just seen a rat. The mother, who’d been feeding bread to the ducks, picked it up and handed it back to the child to drink from.
Other residents told of seeing a rat 'as big as a small terrier and of seeing the rodents climb up onto the wooden picnic tables around the lakes where people often eat their lunch on fine days.
