Garda preparations for march questioned

Opposition reaction: The Labour Party and Green Party have called on Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to investigate the…

Opposition reaction: The Labour Party and Green Party have called on Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to investigate the Garda preparations for the march. The Green Party criticised Garda "intelligence flaws".

Fine Gael's justice spokesman Jim O'Keeffe said the Garda report on the events should include information on who was responsible for organising the violence.

"Clearly there was an organised conspiracy behind yesterday's disgraceful scenes of violence across Dublin city centre," he said.

Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said "whatever one's opinion of the Orange Order, it was hoped that this legal parade would have passed off without incident." He said he was surprised that gardaí seemed ill-prepared to deal with the violence, given the publicity surrounding the march.

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"The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, must seek an immediate report from Garda authorities about their preparations for today's march and the level of protests they anticipated."

However, Mr Rabbitte disagreed with his party's justice spokesman Joe Costello, who called for the resignation of Mr McDowell in the wake of the Dublin riots.

Speaking last night on RTÉ's The Week in Politics Mr Rabbitte said he was "very reluctant to give succour to the people who premediated the disgraceful scenes we saw yesterday, by criticising the Minister".

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said: "I call on the Minister for Justice to answer for this fiasco, and to investigate and review the security arrangements that failed to uphold order on this occasion."