Violence outside Citywest migrant hotel orchestrated online, Irish police say

Violence that broke out during a protest outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Dublin was planned online, Irish police have said.

Six people were arrested, and five of them have been charged, after gardaí (Irish police) were attacked with bricks, fireworks and glass bottles at the Citywest Hotel, in Saggart, on Tuesday evening.

The protest came after an alleged sexual assault of a young girl in the vicinity in the early hours of Monday morning.

Garda Ch Supt Michael McNulty, the scene commander, said the violence had been orchestrated by “disparate groups on social media, who stir up hatred and violence”.

Irish broadcaster RTÉ is reporting about 2,000 people had attended the protest, which, gardaí said, had been attended by peaceful protesters.

However they said there were also youths on horse-drawn sulkies (carts) and scramblers and “violent thugs who were there purely to incite violence and promote fear”.

Gardaí said protesters attempted to breach the police cordon by charging the line with sulkies.

Ch Supt McNulty said: “This was not a peaceful protest. The violence exhibited was thuggery and an attempt to intimidate and injure.”

He said gardaí had come under “sustained physical attacks”.

A police helicopter was targeted with lasers and a police vehicle was also set on fire.

About 300 officers were on duty, with about half from the public order unit.

A water cannon was deployed but not used, while officers on horseback and a dog unit also attended.

A female officer received medical attention for a foot injury. She has been discharged from hospital.

The area around the hotel, which is being used to house asylum seekers, remains cordoned off.

Gardaí are mounting a major security operation at the entrance to the complex on Wednesday afternoon.

Several lorry loads of steel barriers and fencing have arrived.

There’s a strong Garda presence at the entrance and in the grounds around the complex where families, including school children, are living under the Irish government’s international protection programme for asylum seekers.

Five men, aged in their 40s and 50s, have appeared in court charged with public order, breach of the peace and weapons offences.

A woman in her 50s has been released without charge. A file will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme, An Garda Síochána acting deputy commissioner Paul Cleary said the violence was “unacceptable” and there would be a relentless pursuit of those responsible.

“We know that even though people may have been wearing hoods or masks, we still have the ability to identify them and bring them before the courts, and we will pursue that relentlessly,” he said.

Officers were able to “contain the violence and restore order” within two and a half hours, he said.

“Gardai will always support and facilitate people right to peaceful protest but what we witnessed last night went beyond that,” he said.

“It was a violent riot driven by thugs intent on violence, and it wasn’t just an attack on gardai, it was an attack on community safety, and we won’t tolerate that.”

Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday, Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin thanked An Garda Síochána for “their bravery, courage and professionalism in dealing with a very, very serious and grave situation last evening”.

“The gardaí come from our community. They are there to protect us all. It beggars belief that these people would articulate such vile abuse, and would then attack them in a very serious way,” Martin said.

The Taoiseach added: “Our criminal justice system needs to hold the people responsible for last evening to account.

“We wish the female Garda who was injured the very best.”

Ireland’s Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan has said those behind the violence wanted “to sow dissent in our society”.

They will be met “with a very forceful response”, he added.

“I want the people involved in that violence to know that they will be met with a very forceful response from An Garda Síochána and our criminal justice system,” O’Callaghan said.

RTÉ’s crime correspondent, Paul Reynolds, said on Wednesday that police believe the violence “was pre-planned, but they were also more prepared” than they had been during trouble in the city in 2023.

He added that officers had better and more effective equipment, and had stronger incapacitant spray, as well as water cannon “which they didn’t have to fire up”.

“The threat of it was enough to disperse the crowd last night and also the violence was more self-contained, because there was a particular area and location outside the hotel where these demonstrators, protesters and violent agitators had gathered,” he told BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster.

“So it was concentrated in one area, unlike the Dublin riots of two years ago, where sporadic violence broke out in so many different parts of the city and it took far longer to contain that.

“Last night the gardai clearly had a plan.”

He says detectives have already started gathering “very good quality” CCTV footage and also have bodycam footage which “will be used to identify further violent demonstrators”.