‘Lockout’ protestors not as innocents as claimed

It’s sad when Irish people let themselves down, and last week the ‘Dáil Lockout’ protesters embarrassed us.

I have watched witness videos, and listened to first-hand accounts, and the protesters’ descriptions do not reflect the reality. As gardaí stood in front of barriers preventing protesters from blocking busy Dublin streets, they were met with verbal abuse. The ‘peaceful’ protesters heaved against the barriers, and the gardaí reacted with a containing exercise.

I heard gardaí called ‘animals’, ‘scumbags’, and the children of gardaí called ‘piglets’. I have seen many demonstrations on Kildare Street in which people exercised their right to protest by holding placards at the gates, causing no harm or traffic disruption, with no more than the usual garda presence on the gates of Leinster House.

On Wednesday, most of the protestors revelled in the mayhem to traffic and took full advantage of the rare opportunity to go unpunished for berating Gardaí. One video purported to show ‘a garda pushing a woman’, with the comments underneath implying an unquestioned innocence on her part.

She (and her supporters) did not hold her divine right to innocence for long: they verbally assaulted and pushed and grappled with the garda, who returned the woman to where the protest was to be held.

Many videos claim to show gardaí engaging in unprovoked acts of force, but a garda didn’t pepper-spray me. In other words, if you see a crowd heaving against a line of peaceful gardaí, and are foolish enough to join in, or fail to remove yourself from the environment, then you are not innocent, and you are not a peaceful protester.

Justin Kelly

Edenderry

Co Offaly