Dublin emergency services brace for aggression while on duty ahead of Halloween

As Halloween approaches, emergency services in Dublin are said to be experiencing a new wave of aggression while responding to incidents.

At an event highlighting the dangers of fireworks, Dublin fire station officer Martin McCabe said efforts to educate schoolchildren on the work of fire and ambulance crews and gardaí have been successful, but since last year incidents have been on the rise.

“It’s peaks and troughs now. It was bad a couple of years back and [then] there was a great awareness programme about it and it died off,” Mr McCabe said.

“Now we’re back riding the crest of a wave again and it seems to be building up again. This year and last year, absolutely, there seems to be more aggression towards the emergency services.”

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Those concerns are likely to build as fire crews begin responding to increasing numbers of bonfires and fireworks incidents in the run up to Halloween on October 31st.

Lost fingers

On Thursday, Deputy Garda Commissioner on Policing and Security Anne Marie McMahon said every division and district in the country would be searching for illegal fireworks in the coming weeks.

“We have some seized already; that will continue. Operation Tombola which we’re launching today, a key part of that is gathering intelligence in relation to fireworks, in addition to seizing them and preparing files for the DPP and hopefully getting prosecutions,” she said.

“We know from our experience that people get injured, sometimes losing limbs, damage to their eyes etc. Really serious injuries and we know that this happens every year despite all the warnings.”

Mr McCabe, who works with C Watch in Dolphin’s Barn in south Dublin City, recalled one incident where a young man lost two fingers following a game in which he and friends were throwing a firework to each other.

“They were playing a game among themselves with a large firework and this particular person just mistimed it. [He] went to catch it or knock the firework away [but] it exploded with burns to his chest and one of his hands and ultimately he lost two fingers on the other hand.”

Dr Cyril Sullivan, chief executive of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA) appealed to dog owners to keep their pets inside on Halloween night.