No Charge Just For Fun

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This afternoon.

Terenure Garda Station, Terenure Road, Dublin 6w.

The long walk to freedom.

The release without charge of Paul Murphy TD from custody following his arrest this morning for the alleged “imprisonment” of Joan Burton and her assistant during protests in Jobstown, Tallaght, Dublin last year.

Earlier: A Sinister Development

Pic: Daragh Brophy

Thanks Frilly Keane

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81 thoughts on “No Charge Just For Fun”

  3. scottser

    he’s been in there a while now. any decent solicitor would have had him out by now, i’d have thought. unless he made the mistake of actually giving a statement without his solicitor present..

    1. Paolo

      He’s just happy to be in the news. He is going to drag this out for as long as he can. I’d say the cops were trying to get rid of him but he just kept hanging around inside the door of the station.

    2. Just sayin'

      While you’re entitled to consult a solicitor in custody, you don’t have a right to have a solicitor present during questioning or making a statement.

      1. scottser

        apparently he declined to answer questions on the advice of his solicitor. me? i’d be on the dirty blanket protest already.

      2. Ms Piggy

        Is that really the case? I’ll admit my knowledge of such things isn’t much above what I’ve gleaned from US legal dramas, but I really thought you were entitled to have a solicitor present throughout questioning.

        1. Selfie Sensation

          In that case you should stick to commenting on US legal dramas, they bare zero resemblance to reality, even in the US. as above you are not entitled to have a solicotr present while being questioned by Gardai. You are entitled to speak to a solicitor before being questioned however.

      3. The Old Boy

        You are entitled now. There was a ministerial order to that effect at the start of last summer, and not before time.

        1. The Old Boy

          I don’t know how I din’t see that someone mentioned that before. Need more tea, I suppose.

    3. Nigel

      Maybe some government ministers turned up and had a sit-down protest around his cell that prevented him from leaving.

  4. ahjayzis

    If no charges follow on from this, the Gardaí have really made a very serious PR/community-relations mistake.
    If there are charges the problem for them is probably even worse!

    And the worst part is even the most slack-jawed skanger of protestors isn’t wrong when he/she calls them a corrupt, incompetent force, there’s actual evidence these days >_<

      1. ahjayzis

        If you’re not dead-certain you’ve got a tight case, don’t send a 6-man team to their house before sunrise.
        If you’re slightly confident of a case, invite them in for questioning – don’t send a 6-man team to their house before sunrise.

        You know it was heavy handed and whether it was or not, opens up an already unpopular force to accusations of political policing.

        1. Selfie Sensation

          You don’t need certainty of a tight case to make an arrest and Mr Murphy isn’t a suitable candidate for arrest by appointment given his propensity for turning up with “supporters” everywhere he goes.

          That the Socialist party are calling this an attack on democracy is deeply ironic, trying to intimidate the Tanisté and falsely imprisoning is a true attack on democracy. Screaming “peaceful protest” while your co-protesters assault a government minister does not stop it being an assault.

          1. scottser

            there won’t be anyone charged with assault, false imprisonment, offences against the state etc – you do realise that?

        2. Clampers Outside!

          We can talk until the cows come home about how the arrest was made. Of course I agree it was unnecessary to have so many.
          The fact of the matter is this, the arrest, was going to happen at some point.

        3. Cian

          Its rather difficult to arrest a TD when they’re out of their house as they can claim to be on their way to the Dail (Article 15.13 of the constitution gives them wide-ranging but not total escape from arrest in this case) so they basically have to do it at home at a hideous hour so they can’t claim they’re on their way.

      2. Paolo

        It’s like Clare Daly drinking and driving, making an illegal right turn in front of a Garda and then claiming harassment when she was brought to the station for a urine sample. She wants equality for all but special treatment for her.

        1. CJ

          First of all she was cleared of driving over the legal limit and she wasn’t just “brought to the station”, she was handcuffed and brought to the station and then the details of the arrest were leaked to the press. So you’re either being willfully disingenuous or you don’t know the facts of the case.

          1. Clampers Outside!

            “she was cleared of driving over the legal limit ” ….after her refusal to cooperate? Yes. Doesn’t matter about the results when you look at….

            – Made an illegal turn.
            – Stopped.
            – Admits to alcohol taken.
            – Refuses to cooperate.

            That says to me – To The Station !

          2. Paolo

            She was drink driving. Whether she was under the legal limit or not is neither here nor there. She drank a whiskey (enough to put her over the limit) and then got in her car. She couldn’t know if she was under the legal limit or not.

          3. CJ

            She did not refuse to co-operate, the breathalyzer didn’t register so she agreed to go to the station and she was promptly handcuffed.
            And as previously stated, she was not over the legal limit so “she drank whiskey (enough to put her over the legal limit)” is false.

        2. Zarathustra

          … but Paolo, if I remember correctly, Ms Daly had a cold at the time, and she thought a hot whiskey would make her feel better, surely these were mitigating circumstances?

          3. Mayor Quimby

            surely one’s driving would be more likely to be impaired?!

            Whiskey is her tipple of choice BTW

    2. Banotti

      Why should gardai be concerned about PR when making an arrest? Is that how you’d like them to their job?

      1. ahjayzis

        There’s a wide line between Prone-style PR and garda-community relations. Their reputation, undeservedly or no, has taken an absolute battering from their handling of protests – I’m seeing it from my friends newsfeeds literally every day. A bit of ’emotional intelligence’ would tell them rolling up with enough bandmates to form a SWAT band in the hours of darkness and carting someone to the station from their bed is not going to help matters and makes life tougher for every beat cop policing a water protest from here on. They did themselves no favours is what I’m saying.

          2. Kitta Please

            Where was the pedantry? O_0 I was pointing out how retarded such an American-sounding term sounds on this site.

        2. Banotti

          The water protestors are a minority of knackers so they hardly need that part of the community on their side.

          2. Spartacus

            :sigh:

            If he were only a half-decent troll. Then we could at least get some kicks out of mocking his posts.

  6. Rep

    Let’s hope the next time the Gardai are ordered to do something like this, they consult the one braincell between them and refuse. Packs of useless gobsh*tes.

    1. myownself

      Could be because of shift work/day off /going in later/made redundant? Or are you just being a snarky git?

      1. Banotti

        Why not included all possibiliites including the most likely; unemployed through sheer laziness and being useless.

  8. phil

    6 Gardai + one Paul Murphy , that probably meant they needed 2 squad cars , it does see a little excessive … Im sure he would have shown up if asked , at a time that would have suited everyone …

    On another note, is there any point voting for left leaning candidates come next GE? Will they just be locked up disenfranchising their supporters…

    I think its a good precedent thats being set, come the end of the banking enquiry , yada yada yada PEP

    1. Paolo

      He would have shown up with a posse. I imagine that is what they were trying to avoid. How would he feel if he was stopped going about his (ahem) business every day?

    2. Banotti

      The gardai were entirely justified to use that number when you see the group protesting his arrest outside the station.

        1. Banotti

          No but the gardai are well aware of the way they organise crowds very quickly over social media. As it was a coordinated arrest of multiple protestors including an eirigii scumbag it made sense to do it early. This reduces the chances of trouble breaking out. You know nothing about operational policing so probably best to keep your mouth shut.

          3. ahjayzis

            Yeaaaah, the Gardai have been shown in various reports to need a bit of brushing up on the auld ‘operational policing’, non? They’ve been proved to be a crooked organisation – the bad faith people ascribe to them is unfortunately very well earned.

          6. Joe the Lion

            Banotti is absolutely correct

            The subversive element that is “protesting” outside the homes of ordinary working folk going about their lawful business are causing a lot of distress to regular folks dropping their children off to school etc.

            Effectively they are loitering outside people’s home with no lawful purpose.
            I’ve been observing them in recent weeks and they are a well-organised rent-a-mob who can’t seem to find anything better to do with their time than hang out on the side of the road at 7am. Their goal is to cause civic unrest in the sense that they brainwash younger members of their group into provoking the Gardaí, and getting arrested, and in the course of a “lawful protest” the younger person who is less experienced might get a career-destroying criminal record.

            We get it – you don’t want to pay a water charge.

            The Gardaí should forcibly disperse these mobs as they did recently in Wicklow town because they have served society well enough already.

    3. Colly

      They needed two cars to fit Murphys massive head and ego in. It’s a pity they didn’t bring the black mariah and a mattress.

  10. Truth in the News

    Once the Police Authorities under the veiled instructions of
    their political masters in Government to go down this road
    it shows the desperation now infecting the Junta, they are
    looking at wipe out and will do and try anything to hold on
    to their death grasp for power, the next couple of months
    there will emerge more desperate attempts to hold on when
    every trick in the book will be tried. Remember the Heavy Gang:

      1. Dubloony

        god, the smugness of him… We’ll never hear the end of it now.
        Detaining someone against their will is a criminal act.

        1. Joe the Lion

          Many of you commenting on this are a bunch of simpletons and empty-brains.

          Mr Murphy is entitled to due process as is any alleged criminal.

          Your personal dislike of the man seems to cloud the obvious fact that several months after a highly prominent and well-known incident, no actual charges have been brought.

          I see no evidence that Ms Burton could not have disembarked from her Ministerial car and taken the bus home out of Jobstown (that is, if one is running, the state-owned quango that runs the bus ‘service’ usually is frequently unable to provide a service there).

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