McEntee in row with Elon Musk’s X over Dublin riots and describes some protestors as ‘scumbags’

Justice Minister Helen McEntee said Gardaí in Pearse Street were in contact with social media companies on Thursday to take down “vile” posts from the Dublin riots

Political Correspondent

• 18:05, 29 NOV 2023

Justice Minister Helen McEntee has hit out at Elon Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter) for not complying with Garda requests to take material down during the Dublin riots.

She also defended Gardaí being called to the scene of the Dublin riots via WhatsApp as she branded some of the protestors “scumbags”.

Ms McEntee took Leaders’ Questions in the place of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who is travelling to Dubai for COP28.

During the debate, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns disputed suggestions from Gardaí that those gathering rioters were using “sophisticated communication online” to gather troops.

“Far right ringleaders were posting public messages on Twitter, Telegram and on other social media platforms from lunchtime on Thursday,” she said.

“The messages were there for everyone to see. The question is was anybody in Government or in Garda HQ reading them.”

Minister McEntee argued that a detective in Pearse Street was “actively engaged with the social media companies throughout Thursday” and that companies such as TikTok and Meta – which runs Instagram and Facebook – were taking down “vile posts”.

She added: “X was not. It did not engage or fulfil its own community standards and that is why we are moving to a situation where these companies do not get to self-monitor.”

In the aftermath of Dublin riots, Musk, who bought Twitter/X earlier this year, accused Taoiseach Leo Varadkar of “hating the Irish people” in response to comments from the Fine Gael leader saying that incitement to hatred laws would be modernised.

Sinn Féin’s Louise O’Reilly, meanwhile, called on Minister McEntee to resign numerous times as she criticised the fact that Gardaí had to contact their colleagues via WhatsApp for backup during the riots.

“Spokespeople for the Garda Representative Association say that there was no plan, no central instruction was given to gardaí and front-line gardaí showed up to help because of WhatsApp messages sent to one another,” she said.

“This was an unprecedented and catastrophic failure of leadership on the part of the Minister and [Garda] Commissioner Harris.”

Minister McEntee defended the use of WhatsApp, stating that part of the Garda response “involved sending messages to people as quickly as possible”.

She also described some of the protestors as “scumbags”.

Later, People Before Profit TD Mick Barry suggested that the Government was “bowing to the pressure of the far right” if it chose not to place asylum seekers in areas where there is tension.

In response, Ms McEntee said: “The very people the Deputy is speaking about, those who are marginalised in our community and those who are seeking international protection, are the very people that those thugs and scumbags on Thursday night sought to intimidate.

“The measures I am putting in place to support the Garda, including more gardaí, better armour, better equipment, body cameras so that they can have a proper account of what is happening, facial recognition to make sure that these people are identified as quickly as possible.”