Dublin riots: Garda seriously injured, 34 arrests, 11 squad cars destroyed, city clean-up continues and public transport still disrupted
Baku, November 24, AZERTAC
The capital has woken up this morning to the aftermath of violent scenes, looting and chaos in Dublin city centre yesterday after three children and a woman were attacked near a school earlier in the day, according to Irish Independent.
A female creche worker and a five-year-old girl are in a serious condition after the incident on Parnell Square, in Dublin city’s northside. Two other children suffered lesser injuries. And a man, who is currently under guard, also suffered injuries during the incident. He is currently in an unnamed hospital in the city.
Shortly after the incident, a group of protesters gathered at the scene.
It wasn’t long before they attempted to break the garda cordon to the scene. Within a couple of hours, hundreds of people were on the street and scenes gradually grew more violent.
As darkness fell on the capital, chaos ensued. Public transport vehicles including a bus and a Luas tram were set on fire.
A number of Garda cars were set on fire, windscreens were smashed and the vehicles were jumped on.
A bus and a car were set alight on O'Connell Bridge as disorder continued into the evening.
One garda member was seriously injured in the mayhem and is being treated in hospital.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has confirmed a total of 34 arrests for public order offences so far overnight.
Mr Harris described last night’s scenes as “disgraceful” and said 32 of those arrested will appear before the courts this morning.
He said 13 shops have been significantly damaged or subject to looting, 11 garda vehicles destroyed through arson or extensively damaged, three Dublin Buses destroyed and a Luas tram.
Mr Harris said one member of An Garda Síochána has “regrettably” been seriously injured and numerous other members have been injured.
He said the motive for the attack yesterday afternoon is still not clear and he will not engage in speculation.
Mr Harris said he understands that the five-year-old girl is still in a very serious condition and her teacher is also in a serious condition.
No arrest has yet been made but a suspect has been identified and the investigation is ongoing.
And there is a ‘significant’ garda presence on the streets this morning. Gardaí said this includes members of the Garda Public Order Unit.
"Huge destruction from a riotous mob who were in effect responding, and trying to break into and disrupt the crime scene. Order was restored between 8.30pm and 9pm as we deployed more resources," he said.
"An Garda Síochána responded to this entirely and in an extraordinary fashion. Members from across the country responded, returned to duty, public order units from all over Ireland responded to Dublin.
"But we could not have anticipated that in response to a terrible crime, the stabbing of school children and their teacher, that this would be the response. In effect, those filled with hate and the hate directed towards An Garda Síochána, that they would attempt to storm through our cordon and disrupt a crime scene and then engage in violence, looting and disorder.
"Nobody could have anticipated that when these awful events started at 1.30pm.”
Mr Harris said gardaí were monitoring the “build up of tensions on social media and were constantly adding to resources that were available”.
"It has to be said that the crowds of those, who in the first place protested, were then supplemented with those who were only intent to cause crime, disorder and the looting of premises.
“Gardaí reacted quickly and were able to clamp down on that looting. This is not a failure of personnel, everyone responded to this and stood up to the plate, I now have to look at the tactics that we have for public order.
"We have not scene a public order situation like this before, this may be behaviour that is apparent in other countries, but I think that we’ve seen an element of radicalisation.
"We have seen a group of people that take literally a thimble full of facts and make hateful assumptions and then conduct themselves in a way which is riotous. But there is no failure here, this is regrettably how protests have moved on and now we have to graduate and have a proportionate response to that.”
Mr Harris said gardaí have “thousands of hours of CCTV to trawl through, but many of these individuals are well-known to us, they have criminal records”.
He said gardaí have to make the assumption that there will be further such protests following the events last night.
“What happened last night was an entirely different scale to the events outside the Dáil, we’re going to have to have a fundamental review of our public order tactics given the amount of violence directed towards citizens, gardaí and also the community,” he said.
“I’m not going to say we got things wrong, what we saw last night was an extraordinary outbreak of violence and we have to then respond accordingly in terms of our graduated response to the policing of disorder.
“But these are scenes that we have not seen in decades but what is clear is that people have been radicalised through social media.
“I don’t want to lose focus on the terrible event in terms of the dreadful assault on children and their schoolteacher, that is a full investigation. There is also a full investigation now in respect of the disorder.”
Other news in this section
