Irish Examiner view: Our support for the people of Liverpool  

A day of celebration was abruptly turned into a horror — which was then exploited by Tommy Robinson's loathsome online posts

This is the way we would remember Liverpool FC's victory parade, members of the team celebrating on open-top bus, but for the shocking events minutes later. Picture: Peter Byrne/PA

Readers have no doubt seen the horrifying footage from Liverpool when a day of celebration was abruptly turned into a terrifying experience for thousands of fans.

With more than half a million people lining the city’s streets to celebrate Liverpool’s league title victory and watch the players parade the trophy on an open-top bus, the stage was set for a day of joy and excitement. The shocking sight of a car driving into the crowds assembled at Water St in the city ended the festival atmosphere.

The terrible scenes in Liverpool will resonate with anyone who has enjoyed such sporting celebrations, as they imagine similar scenarios. The fact that Liverpool has such a large
following in Ireland will deepen the impact here. Many Irish fans of the club were among the thousands thronging the streets for the parade, while others will be familiar with that part of the city from regular visits for games over the years.

At the time of writing, few details have yet emerged from the incident. It has been reported that 65 people were injured, including several children, with at least four people very seriously injured.

The motivation of the individual or individuals responsible remains unclear. It was notable that the authorities moved swiftly to establish the ethnicity of a person arrested soon after the incident, describing him as a 53-year-old white British man. He has since been charged with attempted murder, as well as dangerous and drug driving.

There was a time not so long ago that such specificity would have been surprising, but clearly lessons were learned in Britain after the Southport attack last year, when three young children were killed at a dance class. There was widespread rioting in the UK following that attack, fuelled by
online speculation which was sometimes ill-informed and sometimes manipulative and misleading.

In that vein, the X account of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson — who was himself just released from prison — was quick to speculate on the possibility of a ‘terror attack’ in Liverpool even as the situation was still unfolding.

Exploiting the terror and suffering of others is a regular tactic used by Robinson and his ilk, but this is a particularly loathsome example. All sympathy and support with the people of Liverpool at this difficult time.

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Housing targets

The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) made one of its regular visits to Leinster House yesterday, addressing the Oireachtas housing committee.

Its news was not good. The ESRI expressed deep concern about geopolitical uncertainty, estimating that the situation is twice as uncertain as the covid-19 period, and was equally gloomy about the prospect of Ireland meeting housing targets for this year. Its projection — 35,000 completions for 2025 — is higher than that of most developers, for instance, while the institute estimates that Ireland will need a staggering €7bn in investment each year to build the 54,000 dwellings required per annum for the growing Irish population.

Little wonder that the ESRI describes the housing crisis as a costly one, which must be one of the most understated descriptions of all time.

It was interesting to note that the ESRI attributed what it described as a “surge” in commencements last year to a specific cause: temporary waivers of levies on development and water connections. This is worth considering in light of emergency legislation brought forward this week by minister for housing James Browne.

Among the measures envisaged by the minister is a change to the law that will allow developers with just two years left on their permission to apply for an extension for up to three years.

Clearly, the minister is motivated by the best of intentions in trying to deal with a problem sprawling across all aspects of Irish life. But it is deeply concerning, surely, that waiving levies and extending planning permissions are seen as possible solutions. The planning application and permission structures are in need of considerable reform, but lengthening the time periods of permissions by that much makes them all but meaningless. And waiving levies temporarily could be seen as a step closer to waiving them permanently, which would be disastrous.

Many parts of the country are still dealing with the relaxation of oversight and regulation during the Celtic Tiger period. Similar action now might relieve the housing crisis temporarily, but at the risk of storing up trouble down the road.

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Emmanuel Macron

The antics of US president Donald Trump have set a high bar for surprising behaviour from world leaders, but French president Emmanuel Macron certainly rose to the challenge last Sunday.

Video shot by Reuters of Macron’s arrival in Vietnam showed him inside an airplane, ready to disembark, when a hand in a red sleeve appeared to push his face. Macron looked up, waved, and then left the plane with his wife Brigitte, who was wearing a red jacket.

“I was bickering, or rather joking, with my wife,” he later told reporters. “It’s nothing.”

Macron added that this was not the first time people have leaped to conclusions about videos featuring him, pointing to a recent incident when some observers claimed a video showed him taking a bag of cocaine out of his pocket. His point was strengthened when the Russian foreign ministry hurried to mock him about the airplane video, with a spokesperson asking if Macron’s wife was handing him a tissue.

Russian insults notwithstanding, however, it was still an undeniably strange scene.