Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As a parent, and indeed a grandparent, and a representative of the people of Kerry, I want to say how sorry and shocked I am to think of innocent little children and their carer and minder being attacked in a savage way. I compliment the gardaí, the firemen, the emergency responders and the ambulance people for facing into what was an awful situation later on that evening. It was horrendous. When we should all have been concentrating on the children and on the injured people, here we were dealing with a riot situation. Those responsible have been called many things and I will call them another thing. There were nothing but a crowd of bums. The people who went up and down the street here, who took away people’s work the following day by breaking into shops, breaking their windows and taking their goods, at a time when their sales should have been happening the following Friday, are blackguards of the worst type and that is exactly what they were.

The Garda members should be empowered to do their job and they should not be afraid of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC.

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