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Updated 4.40pm
ANTI AUSTERITY ALLIANCE TD Paul Murphy has been released from garda custody this afternoon.
Murphy emerged from Terenure Garda station just after 3.30pm today to a small crowd of cheering supporters and spoke with the media alongside his party colleague Joe Higgins.
He had been arrested and questioned this morning by gardaí investigating the protests in Jobstown last November where Tánaiste Joan Burton was held in her car for over three hours.
Murphy was arrested early this morning and questioned by gardaí over allegations of false imprisonment. He released without charge and a file is being prepared for the DPP.
Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Murphy confirmed that six gardaí came to his home to arrest him at 7am this morning. He said they were civil but quite “forceful”.
He said that he engaged with gardaí in having his photo taken and other procedures but said he did not answer questions put to him by officers about the Jobstown incident on the advice of his solicitor.
Two of Murphy’s party colleagues were also arrested early this morning and questioned as part of the investigation. They were released at around lunchtime.
The pair of AAA councillors Kieran Mahon and Mick Murphy – both of South Dublin County Council - have also been released without charge.
The fourth person arrested this morning, Éirigí’s Scott Masterson, has also now been released.
A small number of protesters gathered outside Terenure station with homemade signs along with around 20 reporters, camera people and photographers prior to Murphy’s release.
Earlier, Mick Murphy told RTÉ’s Liveline upon his release that he was shown videos of the Jobstown protests by gardaí who questioned him this morning, including footage from the garda helicopter.
A Garda spokesperson said earlier that four males aged between 30 and 50 had been arrested early this morning.
They were detained at various southside Dublin Garda stations under the provisions of Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.
Higgins told TheJournal.ie this morning that the Dublin South-West TD was arrested at his home at 7am.
“It’s quite outrageous that they would take him from his bed at 7am this morning. These are ordinary, decent people. It wouldn’t happen to a big financier. Six gardaí arrived at the door, that’s a bit overkill don’t you think?,” the Dublin West TD said.
Mokhtareizadh Farrah, the TD’s partner, said Murphy had still been in his pyjamas when officers called to arrest him.
The Tánaiste was trapped in her car for over three hours on Saturday 15 November as she attempted to leave a graduation event at An Cosán — a higher education college.
Banging loudly on the vehicle, the protesters chanted “shame on you” and “peaceful protest”.
Burton was eventually escorted away by gardaí in a patrol car, after a tense stand-off with demonstrators that saw the Public Order Unit and dozens of back-up gardaí called in.
Two people were arrested on the day itself — but this morning’s were the first arrests in connection with the follow-up investigation.
The Tánaiste — who was also struck by a water balloon thrown by Jobstown protesters at An Cosán— gave a statement to Gardaí the week after the incident happened.
Others caught up in the action have also given statements to investigating officers and Gardaí have also been trawling through video footage captured and uploaded to social media sites.
In the days after the incident, Murphy insisted the Jobstown protest had been largely peaceful.
“I don’t need to apologise for anything that I was responsible for or involved in,” he told TheJournal.ie the following week.
Burton said language “heavily-loaded with sexual imagery against women” was shouted at her and her assistant while protesters clamoured outside the car.
“I was concerned if the [car] doors were opened what would happen next,” she added.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Sean O’Rourke earlier, Anti Austerity TD Ruth Coppinger criticised what she said had been a “huge mobilisation of Garda resources to arrest three elected representatives”.
She said she didn’t expect any charges to arise from the investigation, maintaining Murphy and his colleagues hadn’t done anything wrong.
Coppinger also rejected suggestions that the development was “political manna from heaven” for her party.
Farrah (Murphy’s partner) told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny the politician had still been in his pyjamas when gardaí called, and that he asked if he could change.
She said he had been prepared for gardaí to arrive, and that they had to be prepared for every possibility.
Joe Higgins said that gardaí hadn’t contacted Murphy in advance of his arrest.
In a statement this afternoon, Éirigí’s Brian Leeson said Masterson had been arrested at his home at 7am as he prepared his two young daughters for pre-school and primary school.
“When Scott’s partner returned to the house, having earlier gone to work, there were eight Gardaí in the house along with Scott and the two children. Scott was then arrested and made to stand in handcuffs on a public road for a number of minutes before being transported to Tallaght Garda barracks,” Leeson’s statement said.
He said the arrests over the blocking of the Tánaiste’s car smacked of political policing and had been designed “to cause maximum disruption to Scott, his partner and their young family”.
- additional reporting from Hugh O’Connell
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there are a lot of people out there willing to help. just don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask.
Best thing you can do is talk. It will be hard but by god does it get easier
Or write it down to try to make sense out of it but talking works…
Some good news for men for a change. Would do no harm to add the text number in the list of help numbers instead of being stuck in the article. Fair play to Console. At least some group seems to be concerned about men.
There need’s to be a place to go like for DVAM. So glad that the fellas are using it and for talking. Huge step. Proud of you all.
I think that is due to stress, how people treat each other, how relationships are suppose to develop according to what people are told, the westernisation of how a man should be a certain way to act to show that he is a man. That the only way to be a man is sex the whole time with strange women, aggression, fighting, treating others with contempt, being hard and nasty as well as ready to start a fight with anyone…
This nonsense is coming from U.S. television telling men that they are not men unless they are total b….ds.
People are too busy chasing images of what they should be from pop culture, TV and the media and it has become a race to be popular by doing what others tell them in order to be popular. In order to be part of a consumerised society and at its core is bullying and greed.
@ Michael Sands. So what way should a man be then?
Rossa, Be himself and not try to be like others, some say to find what you do not like in your life to get an idea to find out what you do like or want in your life then.
Too many are told what will make them happy rather than trying to find this out for themselves. I think what makes people happy is finding their life’s purpose as people are social, they need to be amongst people and not being on FB etc but with people. Secondly, to feel that they have done something meaningful with their time as in work, hobbies etc instead of playing games or watching TV, THAT THERE IS SOMETHING TO SHOW FOR THE TIME THEY USED.
I think if it is gardening, hunting like fishing etc or being creative as in making things that this will make people happier. I think being busy and creative is the best medicine as it gets people from being focused on themselves and their problems and focused onto something different.
To be a man is to be masculine and to be enjoying who you are and what you can do and not to be led about like a dog on a leash by anyone or anything. So what do you think a man should be Rossa?
@ Michael. Unfortunately I am so un- pc in my thinking that I couldn’t possibly share my views on a public forum with my name attached. Primarily we are fathers, brothers and providers and for those of us gifted with natural ability or even inherited fortune we should expect more.
The key to life is to do onto others as you would like done onto you, that is a good start I suppose?
In the case of bullying talking about it can make it worse as bullies who get caught bullying try to control what was said about them by denying it and putting all the blame on their victim from being stupid, evil, an object of fun to being a bully themselves and accusing that person of doing the things the bullies did themselves in order to pass the blame. So you have to be careful who you tell as some bullies are sociopaths and they have friends…
They try to make light out of bullying and control the damage sometimes in order to keep on bullying. The motivation of bullies is control over their victim and their environment, if they can’t effect their victim then they try to control what others think of their victim because control over another person is control for them. If they can’t control their victim then they can control people around that victim, so they use others to satisfy their need for control but that is what sociopaths do. So many who are in such despair are victims of others or circumstances beyond them and that means they feel they have lost control and have become so focused in on their problems that in fact then they are their worst enemy then because they do not see the wider fuller picture as in those who love them, respect them or who like them. They forget or can’t see the options in front of them and they get into dark ways of thinking and feeling because they can’t step back and that is what bullies do to. Bullies are not happy unless they lower someone’s self esteem lower than their own as they live in slurry and try to grab people and drown them in the same slurry that they live in and their victims can’t see then that what others do and think says more about those saying or doing these things than it does about the victim as what people say and do is who and what they are and has nothing to do with facts or the truth but control and bitterness.
I think bullying in society is getting worse and it has to do with people who are angry, envious, wanting to be accepted by a group, who do not want to be bullied themselves so they join in on bullying. a way to proves ones own masculinity to others in order to feel that their manhood isn’t the size of a peanut and transferring anger in one part of their lives into another part by bullying.
I think the best way to defeat suicide is to let people know that they are loved and that their problems are bigger in their head than they are in reality as they can do and be whoever they want as problems are always temporary and it is better to live life and leave the bullies or problem when they live and that is normally in the cesspool that is who they are.
Good that people are reaching out but hoping they get the right support and information when they do.
Time that doctors and pharma companies stop lying to the public and misinformation people. The “chemical imbalance” theory is a myth. People get depressed for various reasons.
The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Harvard Professor Irving Kirsch ~
http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-New-Drugs-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006
Psychiatrist Dr Joanna Moncrieff – The Myth of the Chemical Cure: The Politics of Psychiatric Drug Treatment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV1S5zw096U
{ Do not stop or change prescribed psychoactive drugs without talking to a good doctor, due to the dangers of withdrawal }
Something that helps is ASIST training (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) ~
http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/Mental_Health_Services/NOSP/Training/
http://www.yourmentalhealth.ie/Get-involved/News-events/Events/ ( Under select Period put the next 6 months )
We deserve informed consent about these mind altering drugs. According to medical journalist Robert Whitaker, in his book “Anatomy of an Epidemic”, anti-depressants can turn mild/moderate depression into a chronic, long term condition.
My experience on these drugs, which I unwittingly took for anxiety ~
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