Official response to Dublin riots poses serious questions for future security

MY LATE grandfather was fond of the saying: “Expect the worst, and you won’t be disappointed.” He was a cheerful pessimist, and enjoyed the shock of the statement as much as he believed in the philosophy behind it.

His daughter found the saying handy last week as she warned family members in Dublin to stay well away from the city centre on Saturday.

Perhaps my mother should volunteer for the proposed garda reserve, or maybe she could go higher. The fact is, she knew something that the Minister for Justice, the garda top brass, and the media seemed not to know - that there could be serious trouble in Dublin at the weekend.

The suggestion by garda spokespersons in recent days that they had no intelligence there would be such trouble beggars belief. It’s not just the fact that republican websites were calling on people to protest on the day. The militant republican family is fairly small and gardaí have been monitoring their activities for years. Everybody knows they didn’t all sign up for the peace process. Simple mathematics is all that is required to know what might follow should a bunch of tactless, embittered unionist protestors propose a march past the GPO.

If gardaí don’t spot the obvious things coming down the track, what are the less obvious surprises that might be waiting for us? It is true, of course, that Justice Minister Michael McDowell was trying to talk down the possibility of an unpleasant confrontation by repeating the mantra that the outlook for a peaceful parade was sunny. He was right to do so. But that was no reason for the garda high command to exchange the helmet for the cloth cap. I mean, we all talk about peace and goodwill at Christmas time but we don’t give all the gardaí the day off.

The few gardaí who were on duty served us well. But what explains the unreadiness of the higher-ups and the rest of the force? Complacency and self-interest may be part of the answer. On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme on Monday, the first two items dealing with the riots were an interview with Friends First chief economist Jim Power and Dermot O’Donnell, president of the Garda Representative Association.

Power’s main theme was the economic backlash that would result if Ireland got a reputation for rioting. Dublin is “the gem in the crown of Irish tourism,” the economist said, and Ireland’s reputation as a “stable, business-friendly environment” gave it an edge in the competition for international investment. Power saw the riots as indicative of an “anti-establishment, anti-business thing” which was now dangerously close to the surface.

The Garda Representative Association had a different agenda. Its president reached for the language of litigation. There was a duty of care on the part of an employer to provide a safe working environment, Dermot O’Donnell told us, and this had failed on Saturday. His members wanted the matter investigated by the Health and Safety Authority.

No doubt both the economist and the GRA man are correct in their own way. But what was missing from this flagship programme was any sense of anger that the public has been put upon, or alarm that people from far and near should have their safety so compromised in the centre of our capital city.

It was interesting, too, that O’Donnell chose this moment to have a dig at the Government, while making excuses for his own organisation. The failure to have water cannon on standby was a “symptom” of the lack of resourcing of the Garda Siochána, he said. But had the GRA made any representations about the lack of water cannon? Apparently not. Such things, it seems, are “operational matters” on which the GRA makes no comment.

Touching more closely on garda welfare is the question of adequate policing for potentially violent situations. Had the GRA made any representations about the number of police, including riot police, being deployed? Again, no - it’s another one of those “operational matters”.

THIS is the same GRA that is truculently opposing, along with the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, the proposed introduction of a garda reserve (which could also be described as an operational matter).

The gardaí are entitled to their opinion on that. But there is something negatively reminiscent of the ‘blue flu’ campaign about the way they are going about their protest. Last week, GRA members were defying orders to remove posters promoting their protest from the walls of garda stations.

Apart from being highly political (targeting the Minister for Justice, in particular), it is in breach of internal garda rules to place such posters in garda stations without permission. Now this week, the GRA is talking about the State’s failures towards its members. Not for the first time, the needs of the public appear to be of secondary importance.

We are entitled to expect a higher standard of behaviour from gardaí and those who represent them. But what we are getting from the GRA is falling short. The danger is this: when gardaí show a disrespect for the law and for their democratically elected masters in politics, this fuels disrespect for institutions of State. On Saturday, we saw early signs of how unpleasant the outcome can be. I am not, of course, saying that the GRA’s negative campaigning was a cause of Saturday’s riots. But its response to the outrage perpetrated on the public suggests it is not fully tuned in to the need to earn the public’s trust through loyal service.

Last Saturday’s events have left us exposed in a number of ways. A propaganda victory has been handed to elements within Northern unionism, who can now point to bigotry and sectarianism in the south despite our pretensions to inclusiveness.

That bigotry comes from people who believe themselves to be much more idealistic, and less self-interested, than either the GRA or the business community. These extreme republicans believe violence is absolutely necessary to demonstrate the seriousness of their commitment to their ideals. They are not powerless people. They are generally educated and have money, unlike the less well-off beings whose looting and vandalism they both foresaw and welcomed.

Such people are the “ultimate narcissists”, says US academic Jack Tager. “In order for these people to demonstrate that they really have a popular cause, they had to use violence so they signal to the rest of the country, ‘This is important, and we are important individuals who are doing this for you.’”

The behaviour of these extreme republicans, and the inadequate response of the authorities to the situation, must leave us wondering whether and how we can cope should there be more serious and persistent provocations to riot in the future. This country is now home to thousands of immigrant people, most of whom live lives totally separate, not least due to the language barrier, from the host community. Already there is some competition for jobs and resources between the new Irish and the host Irish in some sectors of the economy. What happens if there is an economic downturn? Is our society even thinking about the problems that may be looming, or are we half-fascinated, even half-amused by the rioting on our streets? Or are we just thinking about the economy or another ‘blue flu’?