State must ‘learn lessons’ from escalating anti-migrant protests in Coolock, says Micheál Martin – The Irish Times

Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he was “uncomfortable” with what he saw on RTÉ Investigates last night, which said the state must “learn lessons” from how anti-migrant protests in Coolock, Dublin, last July descended into riots.

Over the past six months, RTÉ Investigates journalist Barry O’Kelly has been filming protests against the accommodation of migrants.

The programme filmed the moment on 15 July when a security guard at the former Crown Paints site in Coolock was knocked unconscious after being hit by a pole. It also showed the throwing of a firebomb and the abuse of construction workers by anti-immigrant protesters.

Speaking in Cork, Micheál Martin paid tribute to the RTÉ Investigates team, and in particular Barry O’Kelly, who he said had “put himself in harm’s way” to shine a light on a “very dangerous trend” developing in Ireland.

“People are taking the law into their own hands, intimidating ordinary workers in their daily work, intimidating, harassing and committing acts of violence against migrants and against the population in general.”

The Tánaiste condemned the horrific scenes filmed by RTÉ Investigates and said we must examine what happened to see what we can learn from it.

“I think the state needs to learn from what happened in Coolock. I watched the programme (RTÉ Investigates last night). I was uncomfortable with what I saw. I know the police have made very strong statements about what happened over those few days. In total, about 200 police officers were involved.

“But this is a relatively new phenomenon in Ireland in terms of the extent to which people think they can take control of given environments – or even the extent to which they think they can enforce the law themselves.

“I think yes, there are certainly lessons to be learned. And we need to think about the need to review our criminal justice system to tackle the kind of behaviour that we saw on RTÉ Investigates last night.”

Mr Martin would not comment on whether the police response to the Coolock protests was inadequate, as some people in the documentary suggest. He did, however, admit that the days of what we think of as a “traditional police response” were over.

“There was a period of time where the employees of the facility kept calling the police. It seemed very worrisome. It seemed very dangerous and threatening. The police arrived on the scene. And I think we have to learn from that.”

“When you look at what happened in the UK, where the response to the riots was very rapid, people were in court within days and some were in jail within a week, I think we could learn lessons from that.

“I think the time has passed when you could consider the answers to be traditional. And I think we can’t accept that people are taking the law into their own hands in the predetermined way,” he said.

Mr Martin said those responsible for what happened in Coolock had not been punished with impunity.

“To be fair, there have been a number of significant arrests as a result of this incident. A report has been made to the police authority about it and a number of people are still before the courts. So people are not getting away with it,” he said.

Mr Martin also condemned the “bullying” of RTÉ staff, particularly journalist Barry O’Kelly.

“There can be no tolerance for any interference with the media. They must be allowed to do their job without hindrance and the threats and intimidation that Barry O’Kelly and the cameramen (as seen on the show) were subjected to last night is a threat to our democracy. Let us be very clear about that,” he said.