Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

All members were very taken with the presentation by the Hope and Courage Collective earlier. As regards the direction of travel internationally, we have seen in other jurisdictions what happens when far-right racist activism and that type of activity goes only in one direction and people get hurt and killed. I have been in political life for 20 years, but now I have to be worried about my address and family members. When I walk out of Leinster House, I assume there could be somebody waiting with a camera phone that is going to be placed in my face. Although it is not necessarily a weekly occurrence, very strong security barriers are regularly placed around Leinster House. One sees colleagues from all the various parties being confronted with a camera phone and having things being shouted at them. Every time I post on social media, on any topic whatsoever, I am called every name under the sun. The vast majority of that stuff is racist material. As I stated earlier, two Members of Parliament in the UK have been murdered in the past ten years. The direction of travel is serious. I am a public representative, but library workers, gardaí and those officiating or stewarding at any sort of protest have to deal with incidents that are in the same vein. Do the witnesses share my assumption that the direction of travel is going only one way?

I feel it is very hard not to describe 23 arson attacks over the course of five or six years as domestic terrorism. The level and threat of violence and temperatures are rising all the time. On the images we now see of roads being blocked, I get that gardaí cannot police every single situation in the same way, because each is different, but it sometimes seems a little odd that people are allowed to block roads or that there is a perception that they are allowed to do so. I am not saying these people are involved in arson but I cannot pretend I am comfortable with people being allowed to block roads or stand outside accommodation centres where people live and say they will burn the residents out. What do the witnesses say to those who feel these sorts of activities are under-policed or subject to inadequate surveillance? The perception is that if somebody of a different political persuasion decided to block a road, the gardaí would move him or her quickly. Does Dr. Coxon agree the temperature is rising? Is she satisfied that gardaí are adequately trained and have the knowledge, language and tools, mental and maybe physical, to deal with potential issues concerning libraries and schools? If people are convinced a certain amount of inappropriate material is being peddled in libraries, you can only imagine that they will make a jump to a primary school, thereby making it a flashpoint. Are we prepared for that? There are no barriers to what these people will do and there is no point at which they will stop. The suggestion that you cannot approach, with a camera phone, someone acting in a private capacity with his family is no longer accepted, and the family home is now regarded as a legitimate target.

Is the Garda adequately equipped to deal with the deepening of this as it becomes more poisonous? How does it deal with the accusation that anti-immigrant or anti-accommodation-centre protesters are being allowed to flout the law and therefore normalise themselves in the national consciousness?