Gardai Too Soft?

Are they? I have been in quite a few countries and I have come to realise our police force being friendly and all arnt much good. Not to their faults I stress, but to Irish law


Are they? I have been in quite a few countries and I have come to realise our police force being friendly and all arnt much good.

Not to their faults I stress, but to Irish law. Examples; Student protest in Dublin (I can see people already typing and dismissing my point oh well) where there were the few scumbags who decided to cause trouble by attacking our riot police, and I heard on the videos that were uplaoded, people who were being treated very well in my opinion (compared to what would happen in most other countries) asking the Gardai for their id numbers.

I mean ffs if you are throwing rocks at riot police what do you expect them to say thanks. Even so they didnt do much if any harm to the culprits. My second example; This will cause some upset.

But the "Shell Gas" in Mayo. We had people threatening workers lives, tieing themselves to vehicles and blocking roads etc. Now I understand quite a few of them had their reasons like some of the fishermen, locals etc They were in the right and they went about it the right and legal way.

But alot of people protesting werent even Irish and they had come form different parts of the world causing alot of trouble..These were the ones who caused the most problems the serious ones.

Now people say oh let them off or whatever, but THE FACT is how do other nations view us especially the way we handle these type of situation. Alot of them probably said " why should we go there look at all that hassle over f*cking gas".
Not to drag it on but look at our economy we need to use our resources.


Anyway what if our police force had been alowed to handle thiis the way most europian countries are, Im sure it would have been alot different. To give you an example I was in Spain recently (Ibiza) and I saw the way the police local and guardia civil handled things.

Now from what I saw there was very little trouble if any when I was there. People were afraid to cause trouble. I mean there was only one incident the whole 2 weeks. A drunk man tried to fight with some people. The police local caught him by the neck dragged him up the street a bit. Pepper sprayed him and gave him a few digs. He left for good. And everone saw it and knew not to cause trouble.

This was the west end and I can imagine how much more dangerous it would be if there wasnt a police force like that. Thats just my two cents. Let me know what you think should the gardai have more rights when it comes to dealing with crime?