Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The worst violence in Dublin for a
quarter century has left stores counting the cost of lost trade
and politicians and police calling on the government to look into
how hundreds of rioters were able to paralyze the city center.
Retailers in the Irish capital lost about 10 million euros
($11.9 million) from the Feb. 25 violence, according to trade
association Retail Ireland. Some store owners are concerned that
figure may rise should the country's reputation be damaged after
Irish republicans blocked a march by the pro-British loyalists.
``Saturday had a disastrous effect, a huge effect on
sales,'' said Phyl Crowley, 52, manager of the Blarney Woollen
Mills store on Nassau Street, which shut on Saturday afternoon.
``Tourists are going to go back to the U.S. and tell their
friends about the Dublin riots. It gives a very bad overall
impression of us.''
Republicans set vehicles alight, looted stores and hurled
missiles at police starting on O'Connell Street, the capital's
main thoroughfare. The violence was a response to loyalists from
Northern Ireland, who had planned to march through the city for
the first time in 70 years, before abandoning the event.
Republican Sinn Fein, a breakaway group from the Sinn Fein
political movement, organized the protest. Loyalist bands paraded
briefly in front of the parliament.
Loyalists say the Irish government has too much influence
over Northern Ireland under a 1998 accord that helped start
negotiations to end the conflict. The ``Troubles,'' as they are
known in Ireland, have claimed at least 3,500 lives since 1969.
Nationalists and republicans want a united Ireland, while
unionists and loyalists advocate continued alliance with Britain.
Inquiry
By 2 p.m., two thick black plumes of smoke hung across the
city center as cars alongside Trinity College were torched, and
police, some on horseback, blocked access to parliament. Rioters
smashed windows at outlets including a McDonald's Corp.
restaurant on O'Connell Street. A Locker Room sports store was
looted.
Forty-one people were arrested, and 14 people were injured
during the riots, police said.
Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte said Justice Minister
Michael McDowell should order an inquiry into preparations for
the march and the level of protests the authorities were
anticipating.
``Given the publicity that surrounded the march, I'm
surprised the police seemed ill-prepared to deal with the
violence that erupted,'' Rabbitte, whose party is the second-
biggest opposition political group in Ireland, said in a
statement.
`Reconsider Approach'
The Garda Representative Association, which represents
police officers, today said there weren't enough officers present
to combat the rioters, and also called for an investigation into
the handling of the protests.
William Frazer, spokesman for the Families Acting for
Innocent Relatives, which organized the march, said the group
would meet later today to discuss whether to hold the parade at a
later date.
`` We're going to have to have to reconsider our approach.
We don't want thousands of Gardai put out on the street to allow
us down O'Connell Street,'' Frazer said in an interview on RTE
radio in Dublin, referring to Ireland's police force. ``That's
not the point of what we are trying to do.''
`Carnage'
Rioters used concrete blocks from building works as
missiles, in scenes reminiscent of the 1972 burning of the
British Embassy in Dublin and the 1981 riots outside the embassy
held as republican hunger strikers died in prisons in the North.
``It was carnage,'' said Sean Doran, 20, who watched as
about 300 protesters moved up South Fredrick Street to smash a
window at an office belonging to the Progressive Democrats, a
political party allied to Fianna Fail in the ruling coalition.
``I've never seen anything like it.''
Many of the rioters carried the green, white and orange
Irish flag, and some wore the white and green jersey of Celtic, a
Glasgow-based soccer club with links to Ireland.
Some protesters blamed police for the violence. ``They
started this with their show of force,'' said Darren Murray, 27,
a republican protester as he walked past the shuttered shops on
Nassau Street, about 100 yards from Grafton Street, one of
Dublin's busiest shopping streets.
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said rioters had filled
bins in lanes around O'Connell Street with pre-prepared missiles.
Chanting slogans of support for the Irish Republican Army,
rioters injured six police officers.
``What our members have told me, those that were on duty and
those that were injured, is that there simply weren't enough
police present on the day,'' Dermot O'Donnell, head of the Garda
Representative Association in Dublin, told state broadcaster RTE.