Garda working with pubs ahead of All-Ireland semi-final, says commissioner

The Garda has learned lessons from the policing of the All-Ireland hurling final last weekend which saw instances of anti-social behaviour and a lack of social distancing around Croke Park, Commissioner Drew Harris has said.

Speaking at a ceremony to award bravery medals to 13 gardaí at Dublin Castle on Wednesday, Mr Harris said gardaí are working with pubs ahead of the football semi-final this Saturday. Licensed premises are co-operating with gardaí "because they want to run responsible premises as well", he said.

“We are asking people to be sensible and to follow the chief medical officer’s advice,” Mr Harris said.

Gardaí asked a number of pubs around Croke Park to close their doors last Sunday following reports of dangerous behaviour after the final between Limerick and Cork.

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“Following reports of anti-social behaviour and a lack of social distancing among crowds, gardaí conducted a number of inspections of licensed premises in the Croke Park area,” a Garda spokesman said, adding that “a number of premises” were asked to temporarily cease trading in the interest of public safety.

Minister for Justice Heather Humphreys, who also attended the medal ceremony, said it is understandable people may forget to socially distance in such circumstances.

‘Take responsibility’

“They’re jubilant about their team winning and you can understand that sometimes people just forget, and that is understandable too, but there is a strong onus on every single one of us to try and take responsibility for what we’re doing and try and keep our distance,” she said.

Asked about a series of planned demonstrations this weekend by anti-lockdown activists at Aras an Uachtaráin and elsewhere, Mr Harris said “protest is part of healthy democracy” but that anyone seeking to break the law “need to be aware we will have a policing operation in place and actual breaking of the law and engagement in violent acts will not be tolerated”.

“We fill facilitate protest where we can,” he added.

Mr Harris said an alert sent to gardaí in recent days about possible attacks on vaccination centres and mobile phone masts from far-right and anti-vaccination activists was “precautionary”.

The warning, which was sent out through the internal Garda portal, advises gardaí to be watchful for threats targeting the country’s 30 vaccination centres.

It describes a threat of “direct action” against such sites from far-right, conspiracy theory groups.

“What we were doing was really flagging up to all our members that this threat actually exists,” Mr Harris said.

“We’ve seen it in other jurisdictions and we were worried this has percolated through the internet and social media and we would have incidents of it as well.

“It is about being precautionary so that if we have any calls we can respond quickly to vaccination centres.”