Protests resume after last week’s disorder

PROTESTS continued peacefully in Newtownmountkennedy over the weekend, after a night of violence there last week which was roundly condemned.

Locals protested at Trudder House, three kilometres outside the Co. Wicklow town, on Saturday and Sunday, after gardaí arrested six people on Thursday. The site has been earmarked to house asylum seekers in tented accommodation.

Taoiseach Simon Harris condemned the significant disorder as ‘utterly unacceptable and reprehensible behaviour’.

The Taoiseach said protest is legitimate, but should not be done ‘with an axe’.

Local Independent Councillor John Snell said that the protest was well attended on Saturday with a ‘hugely attended peaceful gathering’ yesterday.

He said those protesting were locals who disagree with the use of the Trudder House site for tents which will house asylum seekers, and what he described as the ‘heavy handed’ approach by gardaí to protesters at the site last week.

Cllr Snell said the people who marched yesterday were marching ‘in solidarity with the people who were hurt and injured last Thursday evening’.

He also said they were marching with the four local people who have appeared in court charged in connection with a public order incident outside Trudder House on Thursday night. The Government has decided to use the site of Trudder House to erect tents to house asylum seekers.

There are currently 1,758 male international protection applicants who are now without any State accommodation after arriving here.

Cllr Snell said the ‘vast majority’ of people protesting this weekend were locals, but said some attended from other areas where there were campaigns against housing asylum seekers like East Wall in Dublin.

He said the local community feel they are ‘being steamrolled into accepting a decision that’s not suitable for anybody’.