Gardaí fear for safety at weekend

REPRESENTATIVES of rank-and-file gardaí will have ongoing contact with senior management over the EU enlargement weekend amid fears over the safety of members coming face to face with protestors.

Concerns were raised yesterday at an emergency meeting between the Garda Representative Association (GRA) and Commissioner Noel Conroy. GRA president Dermot O’Donnell said substantial progress was made, but there were still concerns.

“The GRA and management are going to continue working on these ... up and to and for the duration of the events,” he said.

The association raised concerns over the safety of gardaí, particularly those told to bring helmets, but advised not to wear them unless trouble breaks out. They will be carried on belts, but only by those posted at potential trouble spots.

More than 5,000 gardaí, including 1,000 attached to the riot squad, are being deployed in Dublin as part of a massive security operation that will see the Phoenix Park closed from tonight.

Commissioner Conroy said he had information that close to 300 anarchists will be in the city this weekend.

Gardaí have asked landlords and owners of vacant properties to check their premises for squatters and report “suspicious or unusual” activity. Raids have already been carried out. City centre business people have been advised on security arrangements.

Two 30-tonne, water-cannons, on loan from police in the North, but with new Dublin registrations, were displayed yesterday. They can spray 9,000 litres of water up to 100 feet and boast floodlights and a periscope-type video camera. Supt John Farrelly said the cannons had not been put on display to intimidate protestors.

“We are having a non-aggressive stance, but we have to plan for the worst case scenarios. We hope we will not see them on the streets at all. Our intention is they will be in the background,” he said.

Aisling Reidy, of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, has written to the garda commissioner questioning whether the right to protest is being undermined by the security operation.

Ms Reidy accepts the gardaí must prepare for potential problems, but said: “What I have witnessed to date raises questions as to whether a balance has been struck between the right to peaceful protest, the right of people to be out on the streets celebrating and the security arrangements.”

Supt Farrelly said: “There’s a democratic right to protest and we welcome that, but we do have information that certain small elements from overseas and, we know that some of them are even here now, that they would be determined to cause disruption.”

The leaders of the 15 EU nations and 10 accession states are expected to travel to Ireland tomorrow morning and be ferried to Farmleigh House shortly before 3pm. The official enlargement ceremony at Áras an Úachtaráin is planned for shortly after 5pm.