Carrigaline stabbing: Cork TD warns against people using ‘dreadful incident’ to stoke ‘hatred and division’ 

There have been calls to reject attempts by people from outside the Carrigaline area to stir unrest and promote bigotry following an assault in the town at the weekend.

A teenage boy sustained a number of stab wounds in the incident in the Waterpark estate at around 10.25pm on Saturday and was taken by ambulance to Cork University Hospital. 

He is now recovering at home and a youth is due to appear in court today in connection with the incident.

Cork South-Central TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire said there was ‘genuine and sincere anger at what happened’ and added that the priority was that justice is done in relation to the incident.

“However I am also aware that there are some people using the dreadful incident to further their own awful agenda,” he said in a statement posted online.

“Some of these people had never heard of Carrigaline until a few hours ago. They are attempting to use this incident as a way of stoking hatred and division. I have no truck with that at all. People are entitled to be angry and that includes most here.

“There is terrible anger at what happened last night, which was appalling, but using it to promote bigotry is wrong and I don’t believe the people of Carrigaline and of Cork accept it.” 

The assault was filmed on a mobile phone and shared widely online in the last 36 hours.

Mr Ó Laoghaire also said the incident highlighted the issue of the level of Garda presence in Carrigaline.

“It’s been an issue for some time and I have raised this directly with the Minister for Justice, as well as with the Garda Commissioner,” he said. “I will keep doing so, the numbers are very small for such a large town.

“Carrigaline is a fantastic town with great community spirit. People should know that too.”