Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

For those of us who served on that side of the House, memories are long enough to recall the mischief that would be made by Fianna Fáil if the office of Minister for Justice was held by a Fine Gael or Labour Party Deputy. The Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, has also absented himself. He made a career from indicting the Minister for Justice of the day if a letter went missing. Now, we have had mayhem on the streets of the capital city and only one single Government backbencher considers it necessary to present in the House for the debate.

Responsibility for public safety and maintenance of public order rests with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell. Was there misjudgment on his part? Were gardaí ill-prepared or inadequately resourced and protected? Has the Government grown so complacent in the thicket of rhetoric about the peace process that it was caught off guard? These are some of the questions this debate must answer.

It is hard to overstate the seriousness of what happened on the streets of our capital city last Saturday and there is a number of aspects to this affair that require to be considered. A group of people from Northern Ireland who wanted to hold a peaceful march through Dublin to highlight a particular viewpoint, and who co-operated fully with the Garda in terms of all organisational details, were denied the opportunity to do so by the thuggish behaviour of a violent minority. That is a poor day for our democracy.

Gardaí were subjected to attacks of shocking savagery, with men and women of the force subjected to a hail of petrol bombs and missiles. Some were injured and others were exposed to injury. We saw unleashed a strain of venomous sectarianism that most people hoped had begun to disappear from our society. We saw the wanton destruction of property, the terrorising of people about their lawful business on a Saturday afternoon, and attacks on journalists and photographers. We saw the Garda struggle to contain the situation and regain control of the streets. It is important that there be a full review of the Garda operation if we are to ensure that such a situation is never again repeated and that gardaí and citizens are not again placed at risk.

An essential component of any democratic society is the right to dissent, the right to hold and promote views that are not the views of the majority. That right must be upheld peacefully and in accordance with the law. The Love Ulster organisation is a group whose views would probably not be shared by the majority of society in this jurisdiction. FAIR, Families Acting for Innocent Relatives, is an organisation made up primarily of those whose relatives were murdered by republican paramilitary organisations. Like many others who lost relatives in the violence in Northern Ireland, they believe that their murdered loved ones have become forgotten victims. They believe, probably with some validity, that Protestant victims of republican violence have not received the attention they should have south of the Border. They were entitled to come to Dublin to seek to highlight this particular grievance. I am amazed at the quarters from which one has heard criticism of the march being allowed to take place. Not everyone was going to like the message they were putting forward, but they were entitled to put it forward. Under the Constitution, they have an automatic right to citizenship of this State and are just as entitled to walk our streets as any other political organisation or lobby group.

By all accounts, the organisers of the planned parade acted responsibly. They made contact at every stage with the Garda. As I understand it, they took the advice of the Garda on all organisational matters. The organisers of the aborted demonstration cannot in any way be blamed for the violence that broke out in Dublin on Saturday. Those who set out to ensure that this parade did not take place were directing their hostility not just towards those who planned to march but also towards the values that all democrats hold dear — tolerance, non-sectarianism and respecting the views of others — which are values that should be the norm for anyone who considers him or herself to be a republican. The real test of our tolerance is not accepting those marches with which we agree, but accepting the right of those with whom we might disagree to parade peacefully.

While I regard the failure of the march to take place to be a defeat for democracy, I also acknowledge that had the marchers insisted on exercising their right to parade and had the Garda taken the decision to try to force the parade through, the result might have been much worse. It seems evident that those who wanted this parade stopped were prepared to unleash any level of violence to ensure that this happened. It seems quite likely that had the parade been forced down O'Connell Street, people may well have died or at least been seriously maimed. Events as they were on Saturday will have set back North-South relations. Death or serious injury to the marchers would have done irreparable damage.

One of the things that shocked me most about Saturday's events was the venomous sectarian abuse unleashed against those who wanted to march. While we might like to see ourselves as a modern, tolerant, pluralist society, what was revealed on Saturday was a vile sectarianism that is not far below the surface in some sections of society in this country. Sectarianism is not simply confined to the Orange Order or the DUP. We need to confront and challenge sectarianism in all its forms. We need to recognise that many of those who attempt to pass themselves off as republicans have little to offer other than a form sectarian bigotry. Indeed, when one scratches the surface of the principal republican organisations, ranging from the Provisional IRA to the Continuity IRA, one will find a significant underbelly of sectarianism that is counter to everything for which Wolfe Tone stood.

In recent years and especially since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, we have seen a subtle attempt to rewrite the history of Northern Ireland and, in particular, the role of the IRA. The campaign of the IRA was never about civil rights or democracy, nor was it the glorious, noble war of liberation that some would have us believe. The reality is that it was a sordid, seedy, brutish terrorist campaign that was directed in the main against the Unionist community in Northern Ireland. The IRA was responsible for the deaths of more than 850 Protestants during 30 years of mayhem. We must not forget this. Having said that, there is no evidence, as seems to have been confirmed by the Minister's earlier contribution, that Sinn Féin was involved in Saturday's disorder. If that is the case, then the House should note it.

We also need to exercise caution in the way in which we plan to commemorate key events in Irish history, such as the 1916 Rising. Nothing should be done that would deepen divisions, further inflame passions or give those who caused such mayhem in Dublin further excuse to vent their sectarian hatred. We need to look at practices that may promote sectarian attitudes, even unconsciously, in our society. We need to look at new models that could facilitate the greater integration of children from different religions. We need to do more for groups like Educate Together that promote multi-denominational or non-denominational education.

Crude tribalism can manifest itself in several ways. For example, it can contaminate sport. There has been much comment, including in the Taoiseach's contribution, on the presence of so many young men in Glasgow Celtic football shirts on Saturday. The presence of young men in Glasgow Rangers shirts has been a similar feature of much anti-Catholic rioting in Northern Ireland. There has been a tendency in this country to treat the rivalry between Celtic and Rangers as a bit of harmless fun. However, it is nothing of the sort. While both clubs have made some efforts to counter the tribalism associated with their teams, both sets of supporters include in their ranks those whose principal preoccupation is not football but sectarian hatred of the other side. Of additional concern is that some attempts appear to have been made by a minority of soccer supporters in this country to graft that sectarian element onto Irish soccer.

Different elements appear to have been involved in the violence on Saturday. It seems beyond dispute that a significant degree of planning and preparation was put into the counter-demonstration. It was clear that those involved were determined to stop the march and were prepared to inflict serious injury and even death on marchers, gardaí and bystanders to ensure this happened.

Petrol bombs do not spontaneously appear. People do not walk around town on Saturday mornings with golf balls, snooker balls and other convenient missiles in their pocket. All the available evidence points to a significant level of co-ordination through the use of mobile phones and text messaging to get people to the top of O'Connell Street and then to move them to other locations as the violence spread. Clearly an element also turned up in the hope of trouble and availed of the opportunity to riot, attack gardaí with particular viciousness, loot and destroy. I hope that no effort will be spared to bring to justice those described by the Dublin city manager, Mr. John Fitzgerald, as "a lethal cocktail of extreme republicans and a rag bag of hangers on". While the primary target of the Garda investigation should be the planners and the organisers, those opportunists who also took advantage of the violence must also be brought to account.

A huge amount of photographic evidence already published should assist the Garda investigation. I hope the courts will deal firmly with those who are charged and convicted. It is also appropriate that we should look at the adequacy of the planning and preparation of the Garda operation to seek to learn the appropriate lessons so that similar scenes might be avoided in the future. I was shocked by the level of violence and abuse directed at the Garda Síochána. On behalf of the Labour Party, I express my sympathy to members of the force — men and women — who were injured. I praise the courage shown by gardaí and acknowledge that without their efforts we might now well be dealing with the aftermath of an even more disastrous set of events.

Representative organisations of the Garda rank and file have expressed concern about the level of planning and preparation for the policing operation and raised questions that must be answered. Why was there apparently no warning about the violence, which clearly required a significant level of preparation? Despite the ceasefires and the huge reduction in the threat from paramilitary organisations, we still have a very significant Garda special branch and intelligence section. Why did it pick up nothing?

According to the Taoiseach, "on the lanes at the back of O'Connell St. they had bins of bottles which had obviously been stored there overnight. So it had been organised." The thought occurs that, if the situation was as the Taoiseach has said, why was it not picked up by, or passed on to, the Garda? It was interesting to hear the Minister go out of his way to tell us how the gardaí secured the bins. The Minister stated in his speech that "arrangements were made with Dublin City Council for bins to be emptied and sealed". According to the Taoiseach, the bins were neither emptied nor sealed. One wonders why, given all this information buzzing around his constituency, the Taoiseach did not pass it on to the Minister or at least to the Garda. In addition, RTE news bulletins on Saturday night quoted the Taoiseach as saying that there had been word in his constituency on Friday night that trouble was likely. It is not clear whether the Taoiseach heard these reports on Friday night, but if that was the case he must say what, if anything, he did about them.

Were the Garda numbers sufficient to cope with the threat? According to the secretary of the Garda Representative Association, Mr. Stone, the Garda authorities decided to police the protest on the cheap, with the result that at 2 p.m. Garda chiefs were ringing Kells and Tullamore in the search for reinforcements. For example, I am informed that the superintendent at Store Street made a plea in advance of the demonstration for extra manpower, but the plea was refused. How was it that gardaí in ordinary uniforms and without protective gear of any description found themselves at the front line — especially in the early part of the proceedings — and defenceless against the hail of missiles to which they were subjected? How was it that greater efforts were not made to secure what amounts to a massive building site on the upper part of O'Connell Street? This was surely one of the most serious errors made, as it provided virtually an arsenal of additional weapons for those involved?

Were the tactics used by the Garda the most effective for containing the violence once it started? Was it wise, as appears to have happened, to try simply to push the rioters down O'Connell Street, where they were able to terrorise shoppers and inflict vast damage? I heard the Minister praise the fact that the protesters were transported from Parnell Square to outside Leinster House, but I wonder whether that was the correct thing to do. Ought they not to have been secured and safely sent on their way home? Bringing the demonstrators to Leinster House was the cause of what subsequently happened in Nassau Street and South Frederick Street, where the Minister's party's headquarters were subjected to a disgraceful attack.

All these questions and others must be answered comprehensively by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform — if not today as a matter of urgency — if we are not to be confronted with another potentially violent situation in our capital city. In a different context, the Minister stated:

As Minister I have overall responsibility for the operation of the Garda Síochána and the criminal justice system and it is a responsibility that I take seriously. While it is correct to say that I have no direct role in investigation or prosecution of criminal offences, I certainly do have a role in oversight and political accountability in relation to the policing of the Irish State.

The Minister cannot, therefore, dodge behind any distinction between policy and operations. He cannot seek to delimit his responsibilities for what must be admitted was a debacle in security, intelligence and policing that can only inflict further damage on an increasingly fragile peace process. I hope the Minister will deal with the questions I have outlined when he responds. If he cannot deal with them today, the House must be prepared to come back to the subject when comprehensive answers are available.

See this speech in context