Dublin riots - Vacuum in North fuels tensions

JUSTICE MINISTER Michael McDowell is merely being pragmatic in ruling out any question of a public inquiry into the riot in Dublin on Saturday because it would largely confirm an outcome of which we are already aware.

Quite simply, the gardaí were unprepared for it, and Assistant Commissioner Al McHugh admitted as much when he acknowledged they had no advance intelligence that protests on that scale were planned.

Yet, despite the quality of such intelligence, it appeared to be common currency. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was able to say that information to this affect was circulating in his own constituency.