Newly-appointed Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has refused to rule out Garda officers going around Dublin removing Irish tricolours from poles at the request of Dublin City Council.
At his first press conference in his new Commissioner role earlier today, Kelly was asked if he could guarantee that Gardaí would not be directed to take down flags. He said he would wait to see what emerged from an upcoming meeting between council officials and Assistant Commissioner for Dublin Paul Cleary.
“It would seem for me, on the face of it, that that’s a matter for Dublin City Council,” he said, adding: “But like I say, I don’t want to preempt that.”
When pressed further, Kelly stressed that the issue had only recently come to his attention.
“This is only an issue that’s really broken on my radar actually since yesterday,” he said.
“So look,I’ll have to wait and see how the meeting goes to see what comes back from that.”
Asked directly if there was a possibility of Gardaí removing flags, he declined to give a guarantee either way.
“I’m not going to sit here and give you a guarantee of yes or no,” he said.
“I mean, we’ve been asked for a meeting and we’ll see how the meeting goes.”
The controversy comes after an RTÉ report this morning revealed that Dublin City Council will meet Gardaí in the coming weeks to discuss the erection of tricolours on poles across the city.
According to the report, councillors and residents groups have raised concerns that the practice is being used by anti-immigration activists who they fear are “weaponising” the tricolour.
Fine Gael councillor Declan Flanagan also criticised the flags, saying they were being used “outside of the official means to mark territory and homogenise spaces”.
Independent councillor Malachy Steenson, by contrast, said those opposed to the flags should “find another country to go to.” Steenson described the tricolour as a symbol of national pride and said removing the flags would only prompt more to go up.
Other councillors, including Gavin Pepper of Finglas-Ballymun, have also supported the flying of flags, saying that he thinks such flags should be displayed all over the city.
The practice has been compared to “Operation Raise the Colours,” a campaign in the UK involving mass displays of national flags.