A GARDA WHO was present outside of Roderic O’Gorman’s house and dealt with protesters has said that videos circulating online of the protest “qualify as disinformation” and that gardaí’s interactions with protesters have been “sensationalised” by online actors.
Detective Garda Mark Ferris, who was one of the Gardaí who dealt with protesters outside the Minister of Integration’s home over the weekend, said: “I want to be clear here, the video footage is being sensationalised on social media and qualifies as disinformation, in that it only shows a part of what happened, not the full timeline of events.”
“You can clearly see daylight is fading as Gardaí engage with the protesters who stated they were there peacefully, later in the clip you can see unidentified people placing placards at the home of the Minister in full daylight,” he added.
Ferris claimed that the placards, which had slogans including, “Roderic O’Gorman hates children”, were put up before gardai arrived and were taken down before they got there. “We weren’t aware and couldn’t prevent those actions,” he said.
A video from the protest shared on social media shows that banners with slogans were placed outside the Minister’s home while a number of men with their faces covered stood outside, as two Garda cars were stationed nearby.
Ferris welcomed the Taoiseach’s comments on drafting and enacting new legislation that will help gardai to better respond to “such volatile situations”.
He said a review into the response of the situation is ongoing.
Ferris added that the response was reactive, and that if gardaí had come across the protesters at a different time, an arrest may have been made.
“Leadership is required in how these protests are policed, we need resources and equipment to deal with them not horse before the cart policies,” he said.
The President of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) has said that gardaí are struggling to police far right protests because they are “second guessing” the legislation they are relying on, which needs to be updated.
Brendan O’Connor said that the increasing number of “hostile” protests taking place in Dublin city centre and other places is putting gardaí under pressure, as it is an “extremely challenging” situation for them.
He said that Gardaí are now more frequently being subjected to abuse themselves.
“The legislation we rely on was drafted in a time when this kind of thing wasn’t envisaged”.
O’Connor said that as a result, gardaí are struggling to have “an appropriate or robust” response to protests that escalate.
“The issue goes back to resources and lack of training for this as well”, he added.
O’Connor added that gardaí are under “intense scrutiny” when policing these incidents, and that gardaí have gone from mainly policing peaceful protests to ending up in “hostile situations” while on regular patrols.
The GRA conference is ongoing in Westport, where motions will be heard tomorrow on pressing issues for members.
General Secretary of the GRA Ronan Slevin said that Helen McEntee’s decision not to attend the conference is “disappointing”, as members were looking forward to discussing pressing issues with her.
He said that trust has not been lost in the Minister, but that a more “hands on” approach is now needed.
Update: This article was edited to include a reference to a video taken at the protest.
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