Mick Clifford: Strip search claims at Leinster House protest raise real questions — and some invented ones

Dáil claims of Garda sexual violence demand real investigation — but not at the cost of facts or credibility

 Protesters from the Mothers Against Genocide group protests outside Leinister House as members of the gardaí watch them. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie

Last Tuesday serious allegations of police brutality were aired in Dáil Éireann. Unidentified gardaí were accused of abusing women who had been arrested after engaging in a protest outside Leinster House. There was a claim of strip searching of women, of threats, that one woman was told to strip naked and was touched in “all my sensitive parts”, and, most appallingly of all, that at least one woman was subjected to a cavity search.

“Is that the sort of society we are heading for,” asked Richard Boyd Barrett, after making the serious allegations.