Arson attacks are ‘domestic terror’ says TD
O’gorman slams yobs targeting asylum seeker sites
Politicians have condemned recent arson attacks around the country during a Dail debate as “violent extremism” and a form of “domestic terrorism”.
Equality Minister Roderic O’gorman said debating policy was a normal part of the democratic process, but the recent attacks were “the very antithesis of the democratic process” as they attempted to derail “the normal functioning of this state”.
Ministers warned that arson attacks had put the lives of people at risk, including firefighters and other emergency workers.
Mr O’gorman said: “This is violent extremism, and it’s been drip-fed by a feed of disinformation, a feed of misinformation with the results that people, that homes and communities are being actively put at risk.”
He added that accommodation planned for
Irish people who are homeless and buildings with no connection with the State at all had been attacked, as well as buildings earmarked for refugees and asylum seekers.
He said: “The people who are patriots, they wave our flag, yet they’re literally burning down parts of our country that they claim to love, and they are putting at risk the communities that they claim to be protecting.
“Violence and the threat of it, the destruction of property, the risk to life – these are people who care nothing about communities in this country.
“They don’t care about the truth. They only care about advancing a very narrow and dangerous ideology, whatever the cost.”
Justice Minister Helen Mcentee told the Dail: “Nobody has the right to set fire to somebody else’s property. To do so or to support those who do this is an extremely serious criminal matter.
“No one has the right to cause damage to property, to cause fear or to threaten public order.”
Aodhan O Riordain TD said that “somebody is going to die, it’s inevitable”, and claimed that the issue was “domestic terrorism”.
He added: “This is an epidemic, in any other language, in any other country, this is terrorism.
“This is domestic terrorism, this is people taking the law into their own hands, and if this isn’t stopped and arrested, somebody is going to die.”
Nobody has right to set fire to someone else’s property HELEN MCENTEE
DAIL SPEECH, YESTERDAY