Garda 'OFFICIAL' position...

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday May 07, 2002 13:06 by ciara ciaraoc_ at hotmail dot com

the lads may have forgot their jackets, like...

GArda Press office spokesperson claimed today that "GArda must wear their shoulder numbers", but some of them may have gotten called out at the last minute and not had time to get their jackets. This was in response to claims made by many protestors and onlookers that the police officers had actually removed/covered/not worn their badge numbers. Out of the official number of twenty two who were arrested (this contradicts this mornings Irish Times and Irish Independent's statement that twenty four had been arrested..),
11 are officially being charged under public order offences (garda spokesperson says he does not know what public order offence, just speculates section 6 of the po act.)
2 were removed to hospital
2 are being held as juvenile liason cases as they are under age
1 has been released without charge.
1 garda has a broken arm according to the press officer, yet reports in national newspapers state that there were no gardai hurt or injured in any way during the protest. In response to reports that the car which was subject to 'criminal damage' actually belonged to the protesters the garda spokesman said "if you own a car its fine to dammage it but you can't just push it out on the road and damage it."
The Garda spokesperson also said that all the facts are not in yet and further information will be available over the next few days.