Gardaí facing ‘a balancing act’ in enforcing conflicting rights, says commissioner

The right to peaceful protest does not grant a right to intimidate or threaten, and gardaí have a duty to intervene where people are subjected to intimidation, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has told a meeting of the Cork City Joint Policing Committee (JPC).

Commissioner Harris was responding to a number of JPC members who raised an ongoing series of incidents at Cork’s Central Library on the Grand Parade.

The incidents, which began at the start of the year, have involved protesters objecting to the availability of what they have termed “pornographic” books related to LGBTI+ matters.

During the incidents, many of which have been streamed on social media, library staff have been subjected to intimidation, and in an incident in early March, which was subsequently streamed, a copy of Juno Dawson’s This Book is Gay was ripped in half.

Describing intimidation as “an insidious form of protest”, Mr Harris said gardaí face “a balancing act” in enforcing conflicting rights.

“Where people are being intimidated, and not allowed to go about their normal business, then we have a responsibility to intervene appropriately, and that might be in terms of taking names and warning people, and then moving on to prosecution and indeed arrest if necessary,” he said.

Forsa, the union representing the majority of civil and public servants is currently threatening industrial action against Cork City Council for what it says is the council’s failure to protect library staff against “harassment and intimidation”.

Responding to several speakers who offered their support to library staff, Ann Doherty, chief executive of Cork City Council, said the safety and well-being of council staff was the executive’s number one priority.