Gardaí remove protesters after Tánaiste is heckled at security forum in Cork

Protesters were removed by gardaí from the opening session of a four-day security and defence policy forum which began on Thursday morning at University College Cork.

Five protesters who heckled Tánaiste Micheál Martin’s opening speech to the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy were removed from the event by gardaí.

As Mr Martin began his opening address, he was repeatedly heckled by members of the Connolly Youth Movement.

As the Tánaiste spoke, protesters shouted “shame on you” and “no to Nato”, while a number of people stood before the stage holding a banner saying “Nato wars, millions dead”.

Telling protesters he had learned the value of free speech in UCC, Mr Martin said: 

“The most undemocratic thing you can do is try to shut down debate, which is what you're trying to do.

“What you are saying is that it is on your terms and nobody else’s terms, but that is not what we are going to do today.” 

Mr Martin continued his address, raising his voice repeatedly to be heard over the heckling, and gardaí removed a number of protesters from the room.

The Tánaiste later dismissed as “incoherent” and “not evidence based” the contributions of the protesters.

A spokesperson for An Garda Síochána said on Thursday lunchtime that gardaí continue to attend and facilitate a number of protests at UCC.

Noting that there is a constitutional right to the freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, subject to statutory provisions, the spokesperson said all persons in attendance at public events have rights, not just specific groups or persons.

“At the start of the public event this morning a number of members of the public commenced to disrupt the running of the event,” they said.

When the protesters declined a request from the event’s organisers to leave, the organisers then requested gardaí on duty outside the event to assist.

“Members of the public were asked by gardaí to desist from disruptive activity and again declined to do so.

“The members of the public were removed from the public event for alleged breaches of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1984.” 

The garda spokesperson added that no arrests had been made and the incidents continue to be investigated.

Earlier, when Mr Martin arrived just before 9am at UCC, he heard chants of “jail, jail, jail them all, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil” from a crowd of some 50 pro-neutrality campaigners protesters outside UCC’s Boole Library.

As Mr Martin entered the building, a call of “three cheers for the President” was heard from Dominic Carroll, chair of the Cork Neutrality League, a reference to comments made by President Michael D Higgins at the weekend, in which he said Ireland was “playing with fire” in what he saw as a drift towards Nato.

In a Sunday Business Post interview, President Higgins also criticised the line-up of those invited to speak at the forum, saying they comprised “the admirals, the generals, the air force, the rest of it”.

The Consultative Forum on International Security Policy has been billed by the Government as aiming to build public understanding and generate discussions on foreign, security, and defence policies.

The forum, which will also sit in Galway on Friday and in Dublin on Monday and Tuesday, will include civilian and military experts and practitioners representing what the Government has described as “a breadth of experience and views”.

Ireland’s neutrality and the triple-lock mechanism governing Irish foreign troop deployments are expected to be examined as part of the forum’s conversations on foreign and defence policy.

The forum’s proceedings will be chaired by Oxford Professor Louise Richardson, to whom President Higgins apologised for describing as someone with a “very large letter DBE” (Dame Commander of the British Empire) after her name.