Speaking in response to the concerns brought up by yesterday night’s RTÉ Investigates series Inside the Protests, Tánaiste Micheál Martin stated that lessons must be learnt, reports RTE.
Filmed over the course of six months, the show documented the actions and demeanour of protesters opposing the housing of refugees.
In order to counteract the kind of attitude shown, Mr. Martin said the government needs to consider whether or not to revisit the criminal justice system, reports RTE.
He called the harassment of an RTÉ reporter “a threat to democracy” and expressed his disgust at it.
According to Mr. Martin, several individuals were still in court following the demonstrations at the former Crown Paints facility in Coolock, north Dublin, which resulted in numerous arrests.
He said: “The State does need to learn lessons from what happened in Coolock. I watched it [Inside the Protests] last evening, I was uncomfortable with what I saw. I know the gardaà have issued very strong statements accounting for what transpired over those few days and overall about 200 gardaà were involved, but this is a relatively new phenomenon in Ireland in terms of the degree to which people they can take control of given environments, or take the law into their own hands. We do need to reflect on whether our criminal justice system needs a review in terms of combating the type of behaviour we saw on RTÉ Investigates last evening,” reports RTE.
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