THE IRISH STATE this week stepped up its abject inability to prevent fires at sites earmarked for those seeking international protection as the old Crown Paint building in Coolock was the target of multiple fires across several days.

Demonstrations by the far-right in Coolock this week led to 19 arrests for public disorder and have quite literally reignited the conversation about just how little is being done to keep communities safe from the actions of a few dozen people apparently hellbent on a campaign of intimidation, anger and fear. On Thursday night, the former Crown Paint building in the area – which had been earmarked for use by refugees – was targeted by fire for a second time. 

Senator Timmy Dooley of Fianna Fáil tweeted on Thursday night that “It beggars belief that this facility was not secured from arsonists, considering the criminal activity by thugs masquerading as protesters in the area over the past few days.”

It does, Senator Timmy. It does beggar belief. But who does the senator believe is responsible for this utter inaction? There is a clear pattern of 33 fires (that figure became 34 while I was writing this article and for all we know will be 35 or 36 by the time you’re reading it on Saturday morning) at such sites dating back to 2018. The government has had six years to develop a strategy, any strategy, to address this climate. They have actively, publicly, and on occasion proudly, decided not to do that.

It is not so long ago that Minister for Justice Helen McEntee was extolling the virtues of the hands-off approach taken by Gardaí. Watching Ireland continue to tumble down a rabbit hole of criminal violence in the name of some furious, bigoted, and ultimately incoherent worldview, one would be forgiven for thinking that there is not a single person in a position of power who is prepared to be hands-on in dealing with a small – and I mean minuscule – minority of dangerous individuals.

Videos of Gardaí in riot gear knocking individual protestors to the ground offer little comfort and certainly don’t look like a solution. The root causes of dissatisfaction in communities that have been underserved for decades will not be undone by pushing people around, however obnoxious and violent some of those people might be. Young people with few opportunities and even less money can easily be moved to destruction by a far-right movement that exploits fear for fun and muddies the water between the ethno-nationalistic goals of a few and the window-breaking aggression of young people who have been led astray because there’s nothing in place to guide them anywhere more productive.

It is within this set of circumstances that we saw a man charged this week with making a threat against the life of both Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald an AGS Commissioner Drew Harris.

If bomb threats to the house of the Taoiseach, if threats to kill the leader of the Opposition and the head of the police, if 33 arson attacks over the space of six years, are not enough to get the government into gear, then what is? How are ordinary people supposed to feel safe when week after week there are credible threats made in public, on social media, to the people who truly do have the power to quell this fire (and again, the word fire in this case is not a metaphor).

The one positive we can cling to from our current situation is that nobody has died yet, but we are undeniably pretty far along our descent, and there aren’t too many more rungs left to tumble down before we wake up to the most dreaded news of all, and an inexorable point of no return.

Of the threat made to Mary Lou McDonald this week, McEntee said: “It is right and proper she has reported this to An Garda Síochána, who will deal with it appropriately.” An individual has since been arrested and gone before a judge in a show of expediency that one could probably characterise as “rare”.  On 17 July, McEntee went on Newstalk to praise the “effective” response of Gardaí to the threat in Coolock, though of course that was before the former Crown Paints building got set on fire on her and their watch again.

It’s a posture of powerlessness that is both tiresome and galling. When this week, left-wing activists decided to dissemble the barricades mounted along Dublin’s grand canal, erected in order to prevent anyone staying in tents in such an auspicious part of the city, Labour Leader Ivana Bacik tweeted: “This is not the answer.”

Call me crazy, but if you’re the leader of a political party that has six seats in Dáil Éireann, a seat in the European Parliament, and 57 local authority seats, you should probably follow up your declaration that something “is not the answer” by providing, well, the answer, or at least an attempt at one.

Unfortunately, it seems that very few of those tasked with identifying and implementing answers are focused on doing that. With our own eyes, we can all see how they are attempting to monitor, or manage, or navigate, the problem. There is very little to suggest that there is anything like an “answer” in the offing. 

In global news, the week began with an assassination attempt against Donald Trump and ended with Hulk Hogan ripping off his shirt on a stage in Milwaukee while endorsing what he referred to as ‘Trumpomania’ at the Republican National Convention. Given the nature of this column, you might think that this is easy-pickings for me. You would be wrong. It’s not possible to elevate the ludicrousness of that situation any more than the cosmos has already ordained. There is simply nothing else to say. 

Another Republican official – whose name is Jim Justice, by the way – gave a speech at the convention saying America would become “unhinged” if it didn’t put Donald Trump back in office. This was shortly after he’d brought out his hefty bulldog named Babydog onstage and the whole crowd started chanting “Babydog!” to the rhythm of “USA!” Babydog sat there on a leather armchair while Justice finished his speech. Become unhinged? We went from Trump nearly getting his face blown off to Babydog in a matter of five days. Whatever hinge we might believe is holding America together has long since been blown off the doors. 

Anyone searching for any semblance of stability anywhere in the news right now is apt to be sorely disappointed.