Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I had intended to ask the Taoiseach about the fact that more than 50% of Covid-19 fines have been handed out to people between the ages of 18 and 24. There has been an increase in Garda harassment of young people, who are also suffering disproportionately as a result of unemployment at present. I will ask the Taoiseach about that matter another day, however,

Last night, or more correctly, in the early hours of this morning, we saw workers lifted off picket lines outside the Debenhams store in Waterford. They were physically removed from sitting positions by gardaí in order to clear the way for trucks driven by non-union labour to remove disputed stock from the store. The intervention of those gardaí came after a five-hour stand-off between midnight and 5 a.m. Members of the public order unit from Waterfront were there in big numbers, the area around the store was sealed off by gardaí and traffic was diverted. Some 40 gardaí were involved in this operation. In other words, more gardaí were present than there were Debenhams workers and their supporters. Those officers were backed up by six big police vans.

There is an issue here for the media to get its teeth into. I find it incredible that this is not one of the top news stories in the national media today. That says something about how sharp the media is on these issues, or not, as the case may be. We are talking here about policing reform, however.

Workers are not criminals and should not be treated this way by gardaí. In fact, the role of gardaí should be connected to dealing with crime and antisocial behaviour. They should not be involved in industrial disputes full stop. I will end this contribution with a statement. As part of the policing reform being considered, the removal of the Garda Síochána from involvement of the kind we saw last night in respect of industrial disputes should be on the agenda. It would be interesting to hear a comment on that from the Taoiseach.

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