An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-14 ============================================================ Gerard P. Craughwell (IND), Labour Panel Over the weekend, we had what is being called a protest. Last night, I watched the Garda Commissioner speak to the public and his members about the disgusting retaliation that is being rained down on members of An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces who did nothing other than their job. At the end of the day, we all support the right to protest. The blockade of vital national resources, however, is not a protest. It is an act of thuggery. It is an act that sets out to damage the citizens of this country who have freedom of movement in this country. Let me make an analogy. I was the sergeant in charge of the front section of the riot platoon on the day Frank Stagg was buried 50 years ago. I was surrounded by 15,000 mourners on that day who were very angry over what happened, and rightly so. Frank Stagg was allowed to die in jail of starvation. Yet, not one of those protestors moved to do any damage to any of us who were in the riot squad that day. No garda suffered on that day. Two gardaí were on that grave approximately six months after Frank Stagg was buried and no one ever did anything to intimidate any of those gardaí. We now have a situation where anybody feels they can take up a mobile phone, spend their time walking around videoing gardaí and then have the audacity to say they are being badly treated. They blocked the main street of this city. They locked down the city. They denied people access to funerals, cancer care and the ability to look after their young. Maybe the Government did not get it right. There is currently a debate in the Dáil on a motion of no confidence. I think it is the 12th such motion in as many months. It has become a nonsense. At the end of the day, the Government got it wrong. I would much prefer to see all parties come together and bring forward their ideas to resolve things rather than taking lumps out of one another for the sake of it. For God’s sake, let our uniformed services do their jobs. How dare anyone try to intimidate them. I support Justin Kelly 100%. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-14