Two Irish police officers have been injured and 23 people arrested in a second night of disorder outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers in Dublin. Stones and fireworks were thrown at police, with one injured officer being struck in the head with a bottle and the other suffering an arm injury. The disorder comes after widespread rioting at the site on Tuesday, when a police vehicle was set on fire during hours of violence. Disorder broke out at the site following an initially peaceful protest over the alleged sexual assault of a young girl in the vicinity in the early hours of Monday morning. Earlier, Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly said the violent scenes were anything but peaceful protest, labelling them "totally unacceptable". He added that peaceful protest does not involve throwing bricks and bottles, burning police vehicles or people arming themselves with weapons. He added that there will be a "robust response again to any further disorder". Police said the violence that broke out during Tuesday's protest was planned online. Seven people were arrested that night and on Wednesday, with five being charged. The hotel complex houses families, including school children, living under the Irish government's international protection programme for asylum seekers. The area around the hotel remained cordoned off on Wednesday with a heavy police presence. Several lorry loads of steel barriers and fencing arrived earlier in the day as the Garda operation continued. At night, hundreds of people came to the location at different intervals, many of them onlookers and some with young children. Fireworks were let off and stones, bottles and masonry were thrown at Garda security cordons. Two officers were taken to hospital with injuries– one after being struck by a bottle, the other with a shoulder injury, said An Garda Síochána (Irish police). The police maintained control throughout the evening, with a large number of officers on the ground. As the evening went on, the relatively small gathering dwindled and, at another cordon, a small crowd that had gathered eventually left the scene. The 23 arrests on Wednesday were primarily for public order offences. In a statement, the police said officers on cordons "were subject to ongoing verbal abuse and subject to missiles (bottles, masonry) being thrown and fireworks discharged". It said the disorder was "predominantly carried out by young adult males and teenagers". Earlier, Garda Ch Supt Michael McNulty, the scene commander, said the disorder had been orchestrated by "disparate groups on social media, who stir up hatred and violence". Irish broadcaster RTE has reported about 2,000 people had attended the protest, which, gardaí said, had been attended by peaceful protesters. However they said there were also youths on horse-drawn sulkies (carts) and scramblers, and "violent thugs who were there purely to incite violence and promote fear". Gardaí said protesters attempted to breach the police cordon by charging the line with sulkies. Ch Supt McNulty described the violence as "thuggery", adding that officers had come under "sustained physical attacks". A police helicopter was targeted with lasers and a police vehicle was also set on fire. About 300 officers were on duty, with about half from the public order unit. A female officer received medical attention for a foot injury. She has been discharged from hospital. The principal of a school that teaches a number of pupils housed at the Citywest Hotel described it as a "tragic situation" and "misdirected anger". Kevin Shortall told BBC News NI that most students stayed at home on Wednesday. "Students were going home early [on Tuesday] because there was an awareness that trouble might be brewing and there were messages going around saying come home." Mr Shortall said there is a "real misconception" about the people housed in the hotel. "It's a community of families, it's people living in difficult enough circumstances who have come from difficult circumstances and they're trying to get by." He said there is a student in the hotel who has come from Ukraine in the last few days. "He has come from a situation where his family is being bombed, he's in Citywest now and outside the gates there are firebombs being thrown. "He's coming from one traumatic situation to another." Mr Shortall described the community as a "a happy, safe, integrated, inclusive place" but that this has "added a very awful nasty dimension to the national narrative and particularly to the students who come here who feel targeted and hated". "We need to get away very quickly from this narrative that a certain type of person is to blame for our ills, usually determined by the country they come from or the colour of their skin," Mr Shortall said. Five men, aged in their 40s and 50s, have appeared in court charged with public order, breach of the peace and weapons offences. On Wednesday afternoon a man in his 30s was arrested for violent disorder. A woman in her 50s has been released without charge. A file will be prepared for the director of public prosecutions. Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday, Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin thanked An Garda Síochána for "their bravery, courage and professionalism in dealing with a very, very serious and grave situation last evening". "The gardaí come from our community. They are there to protect us all. It beggars belief that these people would articulate such vile abuse, and would then attack them in a very serious way," Martin said. The taoiseach added: "Our criminal justice system needs to hold the people responsible for last evening to account." Ireland's Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan has said those behind the violence wanted "to sow dissent in our society". They will be met "with a very forceful response", he added. RTE's crime correspondent, Paul Reynolds, said on Wednesday that police believe the violence "was pre-planned, but they were also more prepared" than they had been during trouble in the city in 2023. He added that officers had better and more effective equipment, and had stronger incapacitant spray, as well as water cannon "which they didn't have to fire up". "The threat of it was enough to disperse the crowd last night and also the violence was more self-contained, because there was a particular area and location outside the hotel where these demonstrators, protesters and violent agitators had gathered," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster. "So it was concentrated in one area, unlike the Dublin riots of two years ago, where sporadic violence broke out in so many different parts of the city and it took far longer to contain that. "Last night the gardaí clearly had a plan." He says detectives have already started gathering "very good quality" CCTV footage and also have bodycam footage which "will be used to identify further violent demonstrators".– BBC
