Stealing and robbing comes in many shapes and forms

The piece below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.

Michael Commane

On Wednesday of last week I noticed there was a kerfuffle at a colleague’s desk. The young woman is relatively new in the office. It turned out that her computer had been stolen from her apartment in Dublin.

Naturally she was upset. She uses her computer for her work so there was years of work on the machine. Fortunately she had all the material backed up. When she was leaving the office later in the day she told me that she was nervous staying in the apartment that night and then she explained to me how she usually is very careful with her computer but that particular day she had left the house in a hurry and the computer was on her desk. She had not got it insured.

And by coincidence the man who sits in front of her, the previous day walked into the office with the lock of his bicycle broken. Someone had stolen his bicycle. But he was not too upset as he explained it was not expensive.

Some weeks ago I wrote in this column about catching a chap walking away with the wheel of my bicycle.

Over the last few weeks there have been stories in the newspapers about gangs of professional thieves flying into Ireland to ply their trade. It’s high season for pickpockets and of course we have a fair share of our own home-grown indigenous thieves and burglars.

How often do you do a ‘security check’ when you are out and about to make sure that your wallet, phone and whatever other valuables you have are still in the pocket or bag in which you placed them? If you think about it, isn’t it shocking that we now consider petty thieving and burglaries as inevitable, run-of-the-mill sort of thing.

You should make sure that you have all your property adequately insured and that includes phones, computers and bicycles. You should be able to insure these items on your house insurance and if the insurance company gives you hassle, then haggle with them or move to another company.

A neighbour left a top window open, an opportunist burglar saw it, climbed up the drainpipe and in he popped. The moral of the story is never make it easy for them.

On Thursday Gardaí put 70 pieces of artwork on display, which they believe were stolen over the past 40 years. Forty-three of the artworks are paintings valued at over €100,000. Beside the monetary value of those works imagine the heirlooms they were, the stories associated with them.

The day after my work colleague had her computer stolen a man told me that some weeks ago he had lost his wallet, someone found it and returned it to him with everything in it.

Is everything dependent on our situation? Are some people simply good and others bad?

The world is made up of all sorts. What is it that makes someone so callous as to cause another person such pain and upset?

Is it just the way of the world or is there more to it than that?

The person who stole my colleague’s computer most likely has it sold on by now.

How come that the majority of people in our prisons have poor education and come from dysfunctional backgrounds?

Are they just the ones stupid enough to be caught?

If you think about it, stealing and robbing comes in so many shapes and forms. Some highly sophisticated and then the run of the mill stuff.

But hurt is always caused and the community is damaged.

How clean are any of us?