Thousands of seagulls are driving a seaside town nuts.
They are attacking children and old people for food and polluting every corner of Balbriggan, North County Dublin with their droppings, we can reveal.
The noise is so bad that people can't sleep at night and then locals have been warned not to swim at the town's beach because it is a health risk and the water has become filthy because of the birds.
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The seagulls, a protected wild seabird species, have also invaded almost every roof space in the town for nesting and breeding and the whole flock is said to be out of control.
Last night furious Sinn Fein TD Louise O' Reilly demanded Wildlife Minister Malcolm Noonan and Housing, Local Government and Heritage Minister Darragh O'Brien do something about it.
She fumed: "We now have a massive problem with seagulls in Balbriggan and they are literally taking over the town.
"It has become the number one issue among the townspeople and they are sick of the birds. We have reached crisis-point.
"I have lobbied both Ministers for the past few years to remove the legal protection of seagulls during the breeding season in the interests of public health and safety but they refused and each year the seagull population just got bigger and bigger.
'Things got so bad that for two years in a row our St Lorretto's Convent Girls Secondary School in the town did two Young Scientists of the Year projects about seagulls foraging from young people.
"It just shows you how much the seagulls are on their radar. Everyone is sick and tired of them. They are an absolute nuisance and a danger to public health and public safety.
"The Government can not sit back anymore and do nothing."
The Balbriggan people want wildlife officers to remove the nests to stop them breeding rather than a more brutal full scale cull.
They believe a number of steps can be taken to move the flock from Balbriggan which has a population of almost 22,000 people, to the islands off the North Dublin coast where the birds originally came from.
Deputy Reilly said: "All the experts say there is a way if certain things are done to get them back to the islands.
"Nobody wants to kill the whole lot of them so the best way is to interfere with their breeding."
Many young children in the town are terrified of the gulls who have no qualms attacking humans for food.
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