RTÉ’s crime correspondent, Paul Reynolds, said on Wednesday that gardaí believe the violence “was pre-planned, but they were also more prepared” than they had been during trouble in the city in 2023.
He added that officers had better and more effective equipment, and had stronger incapacitant spray, as well as water cannon “which they didn’t have to fire up”.
“The threat of it was enough to disperse the crowd last night and also the violence was more self-contained, because there was a particular area and location outside the hotel where these demonstrators, protesters and violent agitators had gathered,” he told BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster.
“So it was concentrated in one area, unlike the Dublin riots of two years ago, where sporadic violence broke out in so many different parts of the city and it took far longer to contain that.
“Last night the gardai clearly had a plan.”
He says detectives have already started gathering “very good quality” CCTV footage and also have bodycam footage which “will be used to identify further violent demonstrators”.
