Anti-immigrant protesters block entrance to Leinster House
The protesters, may of them carrying tricolour flags, had earlier been part of a rally and march on O'Connell Street under the banner Dissolve the Dáil.
Some 150 protesters then marched to Kildare Street where they congregated around the main gates of the complex and would not move back when requested to by gardaí and Leinster House security staff.
Extra gardaí were drafted into the area and Kildare Street and surrounding streets were blocked off to traffic. The crowd chanted anti-migrant and anti-politics statements, with some shouting 'traitors' and 'collaborators' to staff and visitors entering and leaving the complex.
READ MORE
The rally was organised by Kerry businesswoman Michelle Keane, who was an unsuccessful candidate in the general election in November. She has taken a High Court action against the State claiming that votes were 'torn' out of ballot boxes in Kerry.
Those who attended the rally began congregating outside the Dáil at 2pm and were still blocking the entrance two hours later. Gardaí at the scene have not yet attempted to move protesters away from the gate.
The main concern from a security perspective is that a student protest is scheduled to take place on Kildare Street at 6pm, which could lead to confrontation if the protesters there at the moment have not dispersed by then.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Legal proceedings initiated against Department of Housing after pulling out of PPP deal in ‘11th hour'
Legal proceedings have been initiated against the Department of Housing after it pulled out of a public-private partnership (PPP) agreement at the 'eleventh hour' over value for money concerns, an Oireachtas committee has heard. Last month, the department pulled out of the PPP projects in which a private investment consortium was to deliver almost 500 social homes in Dublin, Kildare, Sligo and Wicklow. The decision was made on a 'value for money basis,' according to the department. Minister for Housing James Browne initially told committee members on Tuesday he was not aware of any legal proceedings. However, he was later informed by department officials that a judicial review had been lodged. Social Democrats housing spokesman Rory Hearne, who initially asked the Minister whether the preferred bidder for the PPP projects had initiated legal proceedings, said it was 'jaw-dropping' that Mr Browne was unaware. READ MORE While believing PPP 'has a role to play', Mr Browne, who would not speak further on the legal proceedings, said it must be 'completely overhauled and re-examined'. 'It is an important route to be able to get homes that we need in the country but it has to be done in a manner that is fair to the taxpayer as well as giving value for money for the taxpayer,' he said. Labour TD Conor Sheehan said the cancellation of the PPP projects at the 'eleventh hour' has made the delivery route 'essentially unviable.' Separately, Mr Browne told committee members that it will be 'exceptionally difficult' to meet housing targets in 2025. Mr Browne said that while there was a significant increase in commencement notices last year, there was a sense that developers 'turned their attention to further commencements as opposed to finalising the projects they were working on at that time.' Some 60,000 commencement notices were lodged last year, an increase of 84 per cent from the year prior. This was driven largely by temporary development levies introduced to stimulate housing construction. Mr Browne said there has been a consistent level of housing delivery predictions this year from different bodies 'in and around the low 30,000s mark'. 'When you see that level of consistency, it's difficult to disagree with. Certainly, it will be exceptionally difficult to meet our own target that was set out for this year coming from such a low base,' he said. Several committee members also raised concerns over new design standards for apartments , with Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin saying they will allow for 'smaller, darker apartments with less amenities in sub-optimally planned residential developments'. Several questioned how the changes would result in cost reductions of between €50,000 and €100,000 per unit, a claim made by Mr Browne earlier on Tuesday, with Mr Ó'Broin saying he did not believe such a reduction was possible. Mr Browne said the cost reductions will be made possible by the 'significant increase' in the number of units that can be 'put on to the one box unit.' The Minister said he would publish data concerning the projected cost reductions 'in the near future.'
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
Partition was ‘designed to be intractable', says Micheál Martin
Partition 'broke apart a single, more diverse society' and was designed to be 'intractable' because it created two states dominated by majority interests in the decades afterwards, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said. The suppression of the 1925 Boundary Commission report and the 'humiliation' of the Dublin government when the Border was left as it is today was 'a defining moment' in history, Mr Martin said. The Boundary Commission was set up as part of the 1920 Government of Ireland Act to redraw the Border that had then been agreed, taking into account the wishes of locals, along with geographic and economic issues. The Free State government had expected large swathes of land to be transferred from Northern Irelan d by the commission and it panicked when it realised that was not going to happen. READ MORE Nationalists had hoped transfers to the Free State would include areas such as south Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone, where there were Catholic/nationalist majorities. Instead, the report recommended only minor changes. Once the findings were leaked, London, Dublin and the unionist-controlled Stormont quietly put the report aside and reached an agreement that left the Border unchanged. Instead, the Free State avoided paying any part of the United Kingdom's national debt, getting out of a commitment it had incurred under the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The final text of the commission's report was not published for nearly 40 years. Speaking at the launch of a history of the commission – titled The Root Of All Evil and written by historian Cormac Moore – the Taoiseach said the commission's report, and the reaction to it, was 'a radicalising moment'. Describing the book as a work of 'impeccable archival research', Mr Martin said Mr Moore is 'part of a generation of young historians who have used the opening up of archives to give us a broader and deeper view of our past'. Praising such work, the Taoiseach went on: 'If all we see of the past is a reflection of our current beliefs then we are missing out on opportunities to find new ways forward and rejecting the need to challenge ourselves. 'For those who want to move past partisan and ideological debates of previous decades, a body of work is being built up which challenges us to look for new ways of framing the questions we ask of our history,' he said. [ Many Northern nationalists doubt Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael's commitment to Irish unity Opens in new window ] Quoting approvingly the words of Trinity College Dublin historian Anne Dolan, the Taoiseach told the book launch: 'Maybe history's job is to make it harder to be so certain and so shrill.' He continued: 'The Boundary Commission did not create partition, but it demonstrated the entrenchment of a hardline approach defined by dominating as large a space as possible rather than constructing diverse societies. Laying some of the blame at the door of London, he said: 'There is no way of looking at the evidence of London's behaviour and missing the consistent bad faith which it showed to both the Dublin government and majority of the Irish people.' 'Partition introduced a division on this island which had no precedence in this island's history,' he said, adding that partition ignored the reality of 'how most services and institutions worked' and the opinions of large numbers of Border communities. 'Partition broke apart a single, more diverse society and created states which were less diverse and more open to being dominated by one interest. By creating jurisdictions which were likely to diverge significantly, partition was designed to be intractable.' Pointing to the future, Mr Martin said that for 'the first time in a hundred years we have a sustained effort under way to build understanding, engagement and mutual development' on the island. The 'generosity of spirit with which individuals, groups and communities on both sides of the Border' are engaging together is 'one which has the potential to help us to break with failed approaches of the past'.
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on apartments: standards must not be abandoned
As the Government parties survey the wreckage of their overconfident housing promises, they now find themselves scrambling to revive the most sluggish sector in the construction industry: apartment development. The dramatic fall in apartment completions was a major contributor to the overall housing shortfall last year, and the outlook for 2025 appears equally grim. A variety of factors are at play, not all of them within the Government's control. Shifting international investment dynamics, higher interest rates and weaker yields have changed the calculus for global funds that once financed large-scale, buy-to-let developments. Nonetheless, the Government is not without tools to influence the situation. Its recent actions suggest a growing willingness to use every one of them. The Cabinet has already approved the loosening of rent pressure zone rules, allowing landlords in new-build blocks to charge higher rents, in the hope that this will entice investors back into the market. Senior Ministers, including the Taoiseach, have also signalled an openness to introducing targeted tax breaks for apartment developers. Today, the Cabinet approved a set of changes to planning standards. These will make it easier to build smaller, more tightly packed and arguably less habitable apartment units. In effect, the standards for natural light, storage, and amenity space are being diluted. While the changes may please construction lobbyists – many of whom have long argued that strict planning rules have strangled supply – they raise important questions about the quality of future housing stock. READ MORE It is worth noting that this is the third significant downgrade in design standards since 2015, following similar moves under former housing ministers Alan Kelly and Eoghan Murphy. Whether those relaxations delivered a measurable uptick in development is far from clear. If anything, the current slump suggests they did not. Officials in James Browne's Department of Housing argue that the revised standards still compare favourably to those in other European countries. That claim demands scrutiny. Many Europeans who relocate to Ireland are struck not by the generosity of our apartment layouts, but by how expensive and constrained they are. The State's chronic failure to deliver compact, high-quality urban living has long-term implications. Continued sprawl into exurban areas undermines climate goals, strains infrastructure and erodes quality of life. But so too does the prospect of a generation forced into cramped flats while paying among the highest rents in Europe. If the housing crisis is truly a national emergency, as political leaders frequently assert, it demands bold action. But urgency must not be an excuse for abandoning standards entirely.
