Chaplain warns young Poles over drink-driving

A chaplain to the Polish community in Cork has cautioned young Poles and other eastern Europeans about the dangers of speeding and drink-driving as increasing numbers of non-nationals are being killed in collisions on the roads.

Fr Piotr Galus, who is attached to St Augustine's in Cork where he says a weekly Mass for the Polish community, said he was shocked and saddened by the latest tragedy which claimed the lives of four young Polish men in Co Cork on Good Friday.

Sylwester Szczyrow (25), Andrzej Wojciechowski (27), Radoslaw Nowak (23) and Rafal Gorski (28), all from Pisz, were killed when their Polish-registered Opel Astra was in collision with a truck at Goggins's Hill, Ballinhassig, west Cork, on Good Friday night.

"I think young people everywhere like to drive fast," Fr Galus said, "but it's a problem when they don't have the experience and this is a problem too for people from Poland and the Czech Republic and Lithuania.

"And sometimes, too, they drink and use drugs and this is a problem."

Fr Galus said he had already started to urge members of the Polish community in Cork to be more careful about speeding and drink-driving when he delivered a homily at a special Mass for the four men killed in Cork.

"I already have asked people to be more responsible - I did it at the special Mass on Monday and I will continue to do it. How many more people have to die before people learn that it is dangerous to drive fast and with alcohol?"

The Irish Times has learned that a Polish undertaker will collect the bodies of the four Polish men from the morgue at Cork University Hospital tomorrow and bring them back to Pisz by sea and land.

Grace Gliwinska, a director of a company involved in recruiting Polish workers in the Cork area, has travelled to Poland and is assisting the families of the four men with the repatriation arrangements.

She said the bodies of the four men were expected to arrive in Pisz on Sunday and were to be buried following a joint funeral Mass on Monday.