FAIR rally plea - People not ready for more violence

IN an ideal world, there should be no problem about victims group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives (FAIR) holding a rally in Dublin, but unfortunately we know we do not have such a world.

In demanding assurances from the Government that there would not be a repeat of last Saturday’s violence prompted by the aborted Love Ulster rally, spokesman William Frazer knows he is asking the impossible.

The Government simply cannot control the mindless people who were determined to bring violence to the streets of the capital last weekend.

In any case, it would be an issue for the gardaí and in light of the experience last weekend it would be injudicious for them to tolerate a return of the loyalist march “as soon as possible,” as Mr Frazer intimated yesterday.

Neither does he live in an ideal world, and when the broader community may be faced with vicious and mindless violence to prove a point, it stretches democracy, which must not be blind to reality either.

The reality is that the people of Dublin, indeed, of Ireland, are not ready for a repetition of the injury, damage to property and the general destruction experienced almost a week ago.