{"id":43621,"date":"2025-09-04T17:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/43621\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T17:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T17:54:08","slug":"use-of-tricolour-to-mark-territory-for-indigenous-irish-inappropriate-says-minister-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/43621\/","title":{"rendered":"Use of Tricolour to mark territory for \u2018indigenous Irish\u2019 inappropriate, says Minister \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The use of the Tricolour to suggest an area belongs to \u201cindigenous Irish people\u201d is \u201ccompletely inappropriate\u201d and is \u201cnot what the Irish<\/a> flag was ever about\u201d, Minister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

However, Mr O\u2019Callaghan was cautious regarding demands to take flags down, saying the issue has to be handled \u201csensitively\u201d. He also questioned the implications of flying Palestinian flags. <\/p>\n

It comes after it was reported in recent days<\/a> that Dublin City Council<\/a> was to meet garda\u00ed<\/a> in response to concerns raised about Tricolours being erected in some parts of the city by anti-immigration campaigners. <\/p>\n

During an interview on RT\u00c9 radio\u2019s Today with Claire Byrne programme Mr O\u2019Callaghan was asked if he had concerns about how the Irish flag was being used. <\/p>\n

The Minister said the flag was \u201ca wonderful emblem of unity and reconciliation\u201d. He added: \u201cWhat I wouldn\u2019t like to see happening in Ireland is what I sometimes see in the North when you go into a territory, an area, and you see Union Jacks or Ulster flags or other areas you see Tricolours, and I suppose the purpose of them there is they\u2019re marking territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

He conceded that in \u201csome places\u201d this may be happening in the Republic but added: \u201cI think we need to be sensitive about how we deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan said he would be concerned about demands that Tricolours be taken down in certain areas. He added: \u201cThe city council have a responsibility in respect of it. We need respect for the flag. We also need respect for our planning laws.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Minister said \u201cyou can\u2019t just erect a flag on every lamp-post or pole\u201d, adding: \u201cI\u2019m concerned about what is clearly lying beneath it, which is a desire to use the flag for completely inappropriate reasons, to suggest that this is exclusively an area that belongs to indigenous Irish people. That\u2019s not what the Irish flag was ever about.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it was suggested to him that he was wary about people being instructed to remove flags, Mr O\u2019Callaghan said \u201cit really does need to be dealt with sensitively\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of Palestinian flags around \u2013 are we going to say you have to take down Palestinian flags as well? So we need to be careful about how we deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JusticeJustice Minister Jim O\u2019Callaghan TD at a launch event in Green Street Courthouse.
\nPhotograph: Collins Courts<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan also spoke about recent attacks on members of the Indian community, describing the situation as \u201csomething that we can\u2019t allow to go unchecked\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said some offences were \u201cmotivated by racism\u201d but were also committed by juveniles seeking to steal scooters or bikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the Indian community were extremely concerned about it, and I am and I won\u2019t tolerate it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Government has committed to introducing a new transport security force; Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien is responsible for developing the plans. <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Callaghan said that while he did not want to \u201cstart jumping on to his [Mr O\u2019Brien\u2019s] territory\u201d, his view was, that such a force \u201cshould be given powers of arrest\u201d. He said that \u201cunless they have some form of powers of arrest … it won\u2019t be a sufficiently effective force\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week it was reported that newly appointed Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly is examining proposals to arm more frontline garda\u00ed with Taser stun guns<\/a> in a bid to better tackle serious violent confrontations.<\/p>\n

Asked about this, Mr O\u2019Callaghan said he was concerned that approximately 150 garda\u00ed had been assaulted on duty so far this year. He said the roll-out of body cameras will have \u201ca very significant impact in terms of protecting garda\u00ed because it\u2019s changing people\u2019s behaviour\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Tasers, he said: \u201cRegrettably, it may be necessary to roll their use out on a wider basis, but that\u2019s a discussion that we\u2019ll have with the commissioner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The use of the Tricolour to suggest an area belongs to \u201cindigenous Irish people\u201d is \u201ccompletely inappropriate\u201d and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,23898,784,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,26735,29801,11,12,15,16,5,1181,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-43621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-claire-byrne","11":"tag-dublin-city-council","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-garda-siochana","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-jim-ocallaghan","20":"tag-justin-kelly","21":"tag-latest-news","22":"tag-latestnews","23":"tag-main-news","24":"tag-mainnews","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-rte","27":"tag-top-stories","28":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}