“Dail gates rammed by protest truck” [Irish Independent, 29/9/10]

“Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd revealed that at least one garda on duty at the gates of the Dail had to jump out of the way of the truck.

“If it had been later in the morning, staff could have been killed, public could have been killed,” said the opposition politician, who was first at the scene.

“I think it’s a very serious incident and I think it’s an appalling vista to be doing your job as a garda or usher in Dail Eireann and to be seriously injured.”” [Irish Independent, 29/9/10]

Gerard Cunningham has taken a look at how the incident was reported in the regional papers and on the radio here.

Now that the non-violent nature of the toxic truck protest has finally been reported (which should have been immediately obvious at the very beginning), some commentators in the press have gone on to spin it another way:

“the best we can manage is an “angry” man driving up to Dail Eireann at 7am and carefully parking his truck in front of the gates. Take that, he hopefully didn’t shout. It’s surprising he didn’t hop out and put some money in a parking meter.” [Irish Independent, 3/10/10]