FAIR "Love Ulster" march in Dublin

Totally agree, in fact a colleague of mine was told by a Taxi Driver last week that the WOTS was there was a counter protest planned and that people should avoid the city as trouble was inevitible. How could Garda Intelligence have had no warning of this!
 
TarfHead said:
On Saturday damage done was estimated at €50K. Today's estimate is €10M. Now that's what I call inflation.
I think the €50k is the estimate for repairs while the €10M is the estimate for lost business.

Yes, apparently the Gardaí were under specific instructions not to baton charge. There was one Garda quoted as saying (in frustration) that they might as well have been carrying bananas instead of batons, since they weren't allowed to use them!
 
damson said:
There was one Garda quoted as saying (in frustration) that they might as well have been carrying bananas instead of batons, since they weren't allowed to use them!
Since when were Gardaí precluded from eating bananas?
TarfHead said:
Was it just my prejudice, or was it the RTE editing, or did Celtic FC jerseys seem prominent in TV coverage of the events ? Time to make the wearing of that garment a civil offence ?
No - there were huge numbers of Celtic jersey wearing scumbags in town on Saturday from where I was on the north quays as the Gardaí pushed and split groups of troublemakers on the south quays and also in the general vicinity of O'Connel Bridge/Street etc.
Jeffrey Donaldson, on Newstalk 106 this morning, actually made one or two valid points, amid the usual hysterical rant. Maybe I'll have to start buying the Sunday Independent ?
To be fair (no pun intended) to Donaldson he did say on Saturday that it was a shame that a violent minority prevented the march from going ahead.
From a quick glance at today's Irish Times it seems that only one of the thirteen charged on Saturday night was from the inner city (Harcourt Street), one was no fixed abode and the rest were from the suburbs.
 
damson said:
I think the €50k is the estimate for repairs while the €10M is the estimate for lost business ..

Gosh .. Dr. Quirkeys must do more business than I realised ?
 
I believe that the Jervis Centre was locked down with a combination of shoppers and troublemakers inside for several hours on Saturday. If this happened to other stores in the vicinity of O'Connell Street (e.g. North Earl/Talbot/Henry Streets) and also southside (vicinity of Nassau/Grafton Streets) then it could explain the seemingly high estimate put on lost business. My gut reaction would also to be skeptical about the figure but in the absence of more insight into how it was calculated it's hard to comment...
 
Whoever came up with the initial €50k repairs "estimate" must have been dreaming as the figure sounded wrong from the start. The aggregate value of the cars seen burning (including one snazzy black Merc) on Saturday's 9.00 RTE news footage would alone have exceeded this amount by some distance.
 
I presumed that the €50K was purely for sweeping the streets etc. and the €10M included the cost of repairs to shops, lost business etc. The former figure sounds reasonable while the latter sounds inflated but, as I say, neither I nor many others here have any real insight into the details as far as I know.
 

I think the figure of €50K referred to the City Council bill. So you're only talking a bit of sweeping, paving, pole replacement etc.
 
Was just wondering if a persons car that was damaged in the "riots" be covered by insurance or does insurance not cover attacks of this kind?
 
Someone from the SFA was on Newstalk this morning and quoted a figure of €19m being the average value of business done in Dublin on any given Saturday.

Given that this was an international weekend, he said that this was normally doubled to an average of €40m on an international Saturday.

However, given that this was only a small fraction of Dublin business, closed for a few hours, on an international weekend where the match was on a Sunday, and therefore reducing the amount of business that would be done on the Saturday, it's hard to see where a full 25% drop in business can be totally be blamed on the incident.

Having said that, the advice of Gardai to stay out of city centre reduced my spend in Dublin for the international weekend by 50%, with the match being on a Sunday reducing it by a further 25%.
 
ronan_d_john said:
Having said that, the advice of Gardai to stay out of city centre
I never heard any Garda call for people to avoid the city centre on Saturday. Do you mean before or after the trouble? I was already in by the time the trouble was going on on the south quays and presumably Nassau Street direction at that stage.
 
ClubMan said:
I never heard any Garda call for people to avoid the city centre on Saturday. Do you mean before or after the trouble? I was already in by the time the trouble was going on on the south quays and presumably Nassau Street direction at that stage.

I was in there myself earlier (round 2pm) and was set to go back in for 5.30, but my big girls blouse of a mate wouldn't go near the place.

Calls to avoid the city centre were all over the radio, Newstalk for one. And there were such calls on RTE as well. Maybe not calls directly, but quotes from the Gardai asking people not to go near city centre.
 
The 50k figure was possibly just an example of simple journalistic innumeracy, though possibly was an early council estimate for the street furniture and equipment damaged. The cost of the damage to the cars seen burnt out on the RTE footage must have surpassed 50k by itself. I'd expect large plate glass shop windows aren't cheap to replace either.
 
ronan_d_john said:
ICalls to avoid the city centre were all over the radio...

Maybe AFTER the trouble started. AFAICR there were no advisories (except traffic advisories, perhaps) prior to the incidents.
 
I keep hearing different stories - I was on my way down the country, getting up-to-the-minute texts from friends in town as the riots unfolded - syaing that Saoirse, the AFAIK Sinn Fein paper, and Daily Ireland (ditto) both called for people to protest against the LOVE march. How can they be so irresponsible if that is true? How can they hope to gain respectability? Some of these eejits had to have organised in order for the thugs to join in and take things further - and they had to know that this would happen. Especially as some of their supporters are thugs to start with.
 
I've just heard a pretty incredible report on Newstalk from Sean Moncrieff's roving reporter Henry McKean - reporting from the thick of the action on Saturday, interviewing Gardai, protesters, rioters, bystanders. Grim stuff. But way, way, way more informative than anything RTE seem to have done. I'm sure Charlie Bird will be kicking himself when he hears it...

The report doesn't seem to be on Newstalk's podcasts but I'm sure it will be soon. Keep an eye out for it.

(No affiliation with Newstalk, by the way).
 
'm sure Charlie Bird will be kicking himself when he hears it...
Im not sure whether you meant this in jest but do you not think he's had enough for one week?
 
extopia said:
But way, way, way more informative than anything RTE seem to have done. I'm sure Charlie Bird will be kicking himself when he hears it...

Listening and watching RTE during the afternoon, there was nothing at all about what was happening in the city centre, save for a snippet on Marianne Finnucanes programmes
 
Perhaps the only good thing to come out of Saturday's riots was that it gave an clear insight into "democracy" and " the peace process" Sinn Fein/IRA style.
If there was ever any doubt, we now know how these "democrats" will deal with those citizens who disagree with their hijacked version of Irish Republicanism.
Where is the "peace process" now?
Bring on the election.
 
Best on on the radio was the man who observed events from Westmoreland/D'Olier Street. Three gougers passed him talking to each other:

Gouger #1: Quick - we have to get up to Leinster House.
Gouger #2: Where's Leinster House?!?
Gouger #3: Up here on Dame Street. Come on!