Gardaí have removed five of the 99 images of people they want to speak to in relation to last November’s Dublin riots from their website. An Garda Síochána said the purpose of the mass publication was to either rule people “in or out” of ongoing criminal investigations.
“An Garda Síochána has received a very significant public response to this appeal for information,” it said, adding that it had removed “five images” as “these ‘persons of interest’ have now been identified”.
“An Garda Síochána is not confirming at this time the role of any of these individuals in the events of the November 23rd, 2023 and it should not be presumed that identification means criminal involvement in these events,” it said.
They said images of the 94 remaining “persons of interest”, originally published on Tuesday morning, will remain on their website.
Chief Supt Patrick McMenamin, who leads policing in north central Dublin, said earlier the Garda was determined to continue its investigation “until every person that we have identified as playing a role will be brought to justice”.
“The pictures have been taken from the CCTV footage obtained during the investigation. These pictures are of excellent quality. However, we have not yet positively identified those people,” he said.
The Garda force “would not be giving up until we have achieved our objective to bring to justice everyone involved in the events of the 23rd of November last”.
Chief Supt McMenamin added the process of arresting people for charging over the past 12 months had continued in the last week, with six more arrests made. However, the investigation “was always going to be a process which takes time and significant effort and that time and effort was beginning to show results”. And he believed further arrests would follow arising from the release of the images on Tuesday.
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A special ‘contact’ facility is included with each photograph and members of the public can send nominated names for the suspects without having to submit their own names or email addresses.
The public appeal, involving the publication of such a large number of images, is the first time the tactic has been deployed by the Garda. UK police forces regularly issue public appeals for information based on the release of so-called “rogues’ gallery” batches of photographs.
The images have been gathered from CCTV images recorded across central Dublin during last year’s riots on November 23rd. Gardaí are also urging anyone who sees themselves in the images to contact the force for discussions.
Garda sources said it was very possible some of those captured in the images would be identified, spoken to and ruled out of their inquiries.
To date, gardaí have arrested and charged 57 people with crimes related to the Dublin riots, with those suspects having been convicted, or still facing, a total of almost 150 charges. To date, 14 of the suspects have been convicted.
During the night of riots – sparked by the stabbing of children outside a north inner city school but quickly spreading as recreational violence – some 28 vehicles were destroyed by arson or criminal damage.
That included: a Luas tram destroyed by fire, three Dublin Buses destroyed by fire, six Dublin Buses subject to criminal damage, 15 Garda vehicles subject to criminal damage, two Dublin Fire Brigade vehicles subject to criminal damage and a private car destroyed by fire.
A total of 66 premises or places of business were subject to criminal damage and 13 members of An Garda Síochána were injured.
