Flanagan concern over easy breach at the Áras
JUSTICE Minister Charlie Flanagan has said he is concerned about Presidential security after a woman drove into Áras an Uachtaráin and remonstrated with the President about homelessness.
The Irish Daily Mail exclusively revealed on Saturday that a woman drove into the grounds of the Áras and was able to walk into Michael D Higgins’s office undetected.
The middle-aged protester easily found President Higgins in an office without being challenged.
Mr Higgins made an effort to calmly defuse the situation until gardaí arrived.
Security chiefs are currently undertaking a major investigation in to this incident. However, the woman was not arrested, at the President’s insistence.
Minister Flanagan yesterday described the turn of events as a ‘matter of concern’. ‘It is not the practice to comment on the longstanding security arrangements for senior office holders. However, I understand from reports that no harm was done to any property. No harm was inflicted on any person,’ he told RTÉ Radio 1’s This Week.
‘I expect that the review of security arrangements will be undertaken in the normal course.’
Jim O’Callaghan, Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesman, said that ‘there needs to be a thorough inquiry as to how an intruder was able to get into the Áras and confront the President’. ‘Security at the Áras will obviously need to be tightened to ensure there is no reoccurrence,’ he added.
It is understood that the President discussed the housing crisis with the woman until the gardaí arrived in the office, which is located just off the main lobby of the official residence.
The woman was not arrested and was allowed to drive home.
She gained access to the Phoenix Park property as the gates were undergoing maintenance work at the time.
No serving President in the history of the State has ever been exposed to a potential threat in this way.
An internal investigation into how this woman was able to walk unchallenged directly into an office in the President’s residence is under way.
Security at the President’s residence includes uniformed gardaí and members of the armed Special Detective Unit.
A senior source told the Mail this woman ‘managed to drive into the Áras undetected’. ‘Then she parked up and walked straight in. She quickly located the President once inside,’ this source said.
They continued: ‘She is a housing protester and she had some choice words for him – asking how it is he can live in such opulence when people all over Ireland struggle to afford rent, let alone dream of buying their own home. Of course he was shocked to be confronted by someone who had appeared out of nowhere. But once she began to talk, he listened. Gardaí were in the room within a couple of minutes.’
They said that after being ‘spoken to by gardaí’, the woman left ‘voluntarily’. ‘She drove out the gates the same way she drove in. It was a bizarre and unprecedented situation,’ they added. ‘There is major trouble about this at Garda Headquarters. How did this happen?’ The most recent major security issue for the President occurred four years ago, when President Higgins and his wife Sabina were evacuated from the residence in the early hours of the morning, in the wake of a bomb scare.
This came about after a teenager made a hoax call to the Samaritans helpline, where they were understood to have said: ‘There is a bomb set to go off in Áras an Uachtaráin to kill the President. It’s set for 12.32am. IRA, IRA.’
In 1999, a man was arrested on the grounds of the property, after he was discovered to have been armed with a sword and a cosh. emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie
‘Bizarre and unprecedented’