Off the top of my head, while the severity and scope of this is indeed surprising, the direction is not. Just as police authoritarianism has been on the rise internationally (notably in the misuse of vague anti-terrorist legislation in the US & UK to grant broad policing power in many areas unrelated to terrorism), the same trend has also been present to a certain degree in Ireland. FG have been in power for 10 uninterrupted years and have traditionally been the law and order party. Their idea of police reform when the Garda was hit with numerous misconduct scandals was to install a former-RUC officer as head of the Gardaí. So this is all ideologically in line with the ruling party at least.
Additionally, anti police sentiment has generally been on the increase in the past 2 years so this could be a response to that. Recently the country has been trying to open up post-covid by encouraging outdoor dining, events and gatherings (given doing so indoors is still prohibited), with many initiatives being heavily invested in by local city councils. Those initiatives have been completely undermined by riot police arriving to clear public spaces & incite street violence, seemingly with no communication or coordination with local councils (local councils typically being populated by representatives of parties who are in opposition at national gov level).
So... it could be a lot of things. Or it could be gangland killings.
Off the top of my head, while the severity and scope of this is indeed surprising, the direction is not. Just as police authoritarianism has been on the rise internationally (notably in the misuse of vague anti-terrorist legislation in the US & UK to grant broad policing power in many areas unrelated to terrorism), the same trend has also been present to a certain degree in Ireland. FG have been in power for 10 uninterrupted years and have traditionally been the law and order party. Their idea of police reform when the Garda was hit with numerous misconduct scandals was to install a former-RUC officer as head of the Gardaí. So this is all ideologically in line with the ruling party at least.
Additionally, anti police sentiment has generally been on the increase in the past 2 years so this could be a response to that. Recently the country has been trying to open up post-covid by encouraging outdoor dining, events and gatherings (given doing so indoors is still prohibited), with many initiatives being heavily invested in by local city councils. Those initiatives have been completely undermined by riot police arriving to clear public spaces & incite street violence, seemingly with no communication or coordination with local councils (local councils typically being populated by representatives of parties who are in opposition at national gov level).
So... it could be a lot of things. Or it could be gangland killings.