Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of leadership within An Garda Síochána, on Tuesday night there was a very serious incident on Kilmore Road and Churchfield Road in Cork. My concern, and I have actually written to the Minister, to the Commissioner and to the gardaí locally in Cork about this, is that somebody should have made a call that a serious incident was taking place. This goes back to the point about leadership. Who was making the call? Hundreds of young people could not go in and out of their local sporting clubs because a road was blocked for an hour. A car was set on fire, people were injured, and the fire brigade and the gardaí came under attack with fireworks. There is video evidence to show this. A call was not put out in Cork for all available gardaí to come. That goes back to the whole issue of leadership and the structures. This is the second time this has happened on this road in 12 months and the whole question of leadership now needs to be looked at.

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