Gardaí have obtained footage of July’s anti-immigration riot in Coolock, Dublin, from RTÉ after obtaining a court order, Commissioner Drew Harris has confirmed.
Mr Harris said footage of the violence, which occurred last July outside the former Crown Paints factory, was obtained on Thursday and will now be reviewed by investigating officers.
The programme aired last week as part of an RTÉ Investigates show called Inside the Riots. It shows staff, and the site, coming under physical attack and being subject to sustained racist abuse by protesters. It also shows security staff increasingly fearful over the delay in Garda response.
At a meeting of the Policing Authority on Thursday, Mr Harris faced questioning over the Garda response to the violence and delay in activating the Public Order Unit.
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In the early hours of July 15th, the unit was on standby as workers dismantled a camp which had been set up at the entrance to the site by protesters objecting to its proposed use as asylum seeker accommodation.
However, the unit was stood down at 7am and protesters subsequently gathered at the site through the morning before violence erupted. Order was not restored until the late afternoon.
Mr Harris said “in hindsight”, the unit should not have been stood down that morning.
Thirty-four people have since been arrested for allegedly taking part in the violence and 26 have been charged.
The commissioner said RTÉ's footage will now be examined for evidence of further offences and that more arrests may follow as a result. Mr Harris said he understands and appreciates that journalists cannot hand over their footage to gardaí in the absence of a court order.
Assistant Commissioner for Dublin Angela Willis said the site’s contractor had informed gardaí the previous week about their intention to move workers into the location on July 15th.
She said the superintendent in the area was concerned that this was not enough notice and that gardaí might not have had sufficient resources to police the incident due to other events in the city.
However, the assistant commissioner said the contractor was “adamant” that the operation go ahead on that day.
The commissioner told the meeting that €3.7 million has been spent on public order equipment in the last two years and that €1.4 million has been spent on 15 new public order vehicles.
This week he also signed off on the purchase of two water cannon vehicles which can each carry 5,200 litres of water for €1.5 million
The meeting heard there have been 862 protests so far this year, up 56 per cent on the first nine months of last year. The vast majority of these have been peaceful, gardaí said.
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