Members of community action group, ‘Newtown Says No’, have handed a statement to their local Garda station in Newtownmountkennedy after clashes with Gardaí which saw a number of locals injured last April.
As Gript previously reported, locals from Newtownmountkennedy, Co.Wicklow held a 24 hour protest outside what was then the proposed asylum seekers accommodation facility in River Lodge, Trudder, in the village of Newtownmountkennedy.
The statement as seen by Gript said that “brutality” had been “inflicted on Irish citizens by An Garda Síochána” in relation to scenes which unfolded outside River Lodge after the Garda Public Order Unit was deployed there.
“As a community, we commenced our peaceful assembly on Trudder Lane, Newtownmountkennedy on March 14th and it remained peacefully with friends, family and well-wishers joining us for four weeks without incident until An Garda Síochána arrived on April 15th with the Public Order Unit.”
The group say they believe this was “an unnecessary tactic that escalated tensions” and that it was done in order to facilitate “state sponsored glorified human trafficking.”
Newtown Says No say that a “repeat” of these tactics took place on the morning of April 25th and that on this occasion “an increased number of Gardaí with the Public Order Unit aided masked workers” to commence works in River Lodge, Trudder House while the protesters were led to believe that they were to meet with representatives of the Department of Integration to discuss the proposed asylum centre.
The group say that “tensions escalated that day” to the point of a “small-scale riot” where “countless citizens”, including a journalist were “physically assaulted and pepper sprayed.”
This is my footage from seconds after the charge shown in the video above took place. pic.twitter.com/UqWzxR2CdJ
— Fatima Gunning (@fatima_gunning) April 30, 2024
In the hours after the events of the 25th of April Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said that members of An Garda Síochána “were attacked with stones” and that Garda vehicles had been “damaged”.
Harris said that “rubble and stones were thrown from fields and members had to deploy in protective public order equipment and shields to make sure that they could protect themselves from the assaults upon them.”
Newtown Says No claimed that “at no point” did the residents of Newtownmountkennedy who participated in the protest escalate the situation “into violence”, but pointed the finger at An Garda Síochána “on both occasions” saying that the Gardaí took that course of action at the behest of Commissioner Drew Harris who they “do not have confidence in”.
Newtown Says No slammed what it called “abhorrent slurs” made against them by “the establishment” , noting that they were called “ far right, racist, xenophobic, domestic terrorists and bigots”.
“We are the law-abiding citizens that prop this country up with our hard work and taxes. We are a collective of many races, ethnicities, nationalities, religious beliefs and sexual identities,” it said.
The group insist that many of their number “support immigration” but point out that “immigration has at no point in our lives consisted of predominantly unknown men living in tents in fields, roundabouts and behind army barrack walls with steel fences lining our once safe capital,”.
They say that this should not be “conflated” with normal patterns of immigration.
The group says they “demand” that “the Irish statute be enacted” and that undocumented migrants be “deported upon arriving in our sovereign state, that they are held in detainment facilities in our airports and harbours and border to the North.”
The group called for a “sensible cap” to be placed on foreign immigration into Ireland “to ensure Ireland welcomes the most peaceful, law-abiding, hard-working people to our country that seek to integrate and better themselves and our communities and in turn safeguards Irish history, heritage and culture.”
As Gript previously reported, three men and one woman were charged with Public Order offences arising from the events of the 25th of April.