A chara, – Looking at the very disturbing reports on the news from Coolock, my first thoughts are with our gardaí (”Coolock violence: Garda concern mounting about security threat after clashes lead to arrests”, News, July 16th).
It is very unfair to this noble force to have to stand in line and be berated verbally and attacked physically. Some people who wrap themselves in our tricolour seem to think that by hijacking our national flag this somehow gives every action after that legality. It doesn’t.
Our gardaí need extra help dealing with these violent crowds. I accept that there are people protesting with genuine concerns about immigration but these protests are being used by some just to cause mayhem and destruction. Gardaí have to operate in an environment where there are cameras stuck in their faces and the worst type of insults are being shouted at them. It must be a very worrying time for their families.
I call on Drew Harris to back up the Garda Síochána with members of the Army to ensure that this type of anarchy doesn’t prosper in our country. – Is mise,
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PAT BURKE WALSH,
Gorey,
Co Wexford.
Sir, – I bet there are empty buildings in Dublin 4 and other well-heeled parts of the country that could house international protection applicants, so why is that these people, who need our help and support, are so often placed in communities that are already fighting for ever-decreasing resources? The catchment area for Coolock Garda station covers an area that has historically been denied proper resources for education, health and other social services but somehow it was decided, without sufficient funding in place, that it was a good idea to add more people, with very complex physical and mental health needs and practical needs, to place even more pressure on the limited budgets in that area.
Yet no one in Clontarf or Howth or Blackrock or Donnybrook or any of the many well-off and well-funded areas of Dublin that don’t have a historical legacy of State neglect like the Coolock catchment area are being asked to make accommodations.
I can’t condone the violence or why local residents are such easy pawns for extremists. But it’s not hard to see why they are such easy targets for extremists, and maybe the Government should heed a lesson: that disadvantaged communities do not have sufficient extra bandwidth (financial or practical) to meet the needs of local people and international protection applicants and that the burden needs to be shared fairly, or else there are going to be more flashpoints, especially given how fast social media can stir up things.
It looks like the age-old trick of trick of pitting the less well-off against international protection applicants, or other newcomers, away from the nice middle-class suburbs and expecting those with the least to sacrifice the most, while the affluent sacrifice nothing and look away (the story of Ireland in a nutshell?), isn’t going to work anymore. – Yours, etc,
DESMOND FITZGERALD,
The Hague,
The Netherlands.
Sir, – The scenes of anarchy around the former Crown Paints factory in Coolock will rightly draw condemnation from all and sundry across the political spectrum as gardaí come under attack from criminal elements. However, it may be advisable to examine the rationale of attempting to commence work on a site that has been the subject of protest for months once it became common knowledge that 500 international asylum applicants were intended to be accommodated there.
It appears that due to the planned Thornton Hall tent solution to over 2,000 people currently claiming asylum, but without accommodation, being stalled, Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman or his officials directed that work commence under cover of darkness in Coolock, with eminently predictable results. At a time when one in three of all international asylum applicants (actually 40 per cent last week, per the International Protection Accommodation Services agency) are claiming to be from Jordan and Palestine, is it too much to ask that the Minister and Government do not inflame local tensions by railroading through forced accommodation which is likely to see people in it for years at the current rate of processing obviously unsafe country applications? – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL FLYNN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.