Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)

First and foremost, I congratulate gardaí for their bravery and professionalism in dealing with this situation on Saturday. They found themselves in an extremely difficult situation on Saturday afternoon. Although lacking resources, a small number of gardaí put their lives at risk to protect the citizens of this State. Their actions are highly commendable and Members should consider themselves lucky to have people of such calibre in the force. However, it is unfortunate that the same level of commitment in dealing with this demonstration did not come from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell. As the political head of the Garda Síochána, the Minister must be held accountable for what happened on the streets of Dublin on Saturday afternoon.

I was attending the Young Fine Gael conference when I heard and saw the live images from the streets of Dublin. It was absolutely horrific and I could not believe it could happen in my own country, especially within the centre of Dublin city. Images were broadcast across the world of a violent riot in our capital which should not have been permitted to happen. It should have been a weekend of celebration as an international rugby match was to be played and many tourists were in the city. They were frightened to witness what took place. Hopefully this will not turn them away and was a once-off event.

The first issue that must be examined is the preparation and planning of such an event or march. As we have never experienced any demonstration of this kind in Dublin, surely common sense would dictate that being over-prepared, rather than under-prepared, would have been the best course of action. On Friday evening, as the Taoiseach acknowledged, the word on the street was that there would be trouble on Saturday and citizens, not belonging to any political organisation or to any republican organisation, were receiving e-mails to be off the streets in Dublin on Saturday afternoon because trouble was expected.

The word even reached some taxi-drivers. A taxi-driver to whom I spoke on Thursday told me that trouble was expected on Saturday. The e-mail circulating widely was brought to the attention of the Garda by one Fine Gael councillor, which is reported in The Star newspaper today. Even at that stage, the Minister did not put any additional manpower or any necessary procedures in place to make our streets safe on Saturday afternoon.

What happened on Saturday also draws attention to the under resourcing of the Garda Síochána, not only in terms of manpower. We are still waiting for the extra thousands of gardaí the Minister promised during the last general election campaign. The Garda is totally under resourced.

I ask the Minister to refer in his concluding remarks to the water-cannon borrowed from the RUC in 1994 and used effectively by the Garda Síochána at the time.

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