Gardaí have yet to find evidence of a national conspiracy around a spate of arson attacks across the country, the commissioner has said.
There have been more than 20 fires at properties associated, sometimes incorrectly, with accommodating asylum seekers in 2023 and 2024.
Speaking to the Policing Authority on Thursday, Commissioner Drew Harris said that while the individual attacks are localised incidents subject to “serious” local investigations, gardaí have also implemented a national response.
He said all the organisation’s investigative tools are utilised when examining arson attacks, adding that gardaí have recently gone back over past incidents to probe for possible links.
Mr Harris said the Special Detective Unit (SDU) has a national investigation which is seeking to “draw on any threads on commonality” on individuals involved or modus operandi.
Asked about a perception that there may be an organised national effort behind the arson attacks, Mr Harris said: “It’s the job of the SDU to find those links if they exist.
“We have an open mind, we follow the evidence, we’re informed by the intelligence picture.
“At this moment of time, we’ve not seen this, in effect, overall conspiracy.
“A conspiracy has to be more than four or five fire emojis on an X post.
“There’s lots of posts which are very concerning in terms of their content but don’t breach the criminal threshold in terms of what is said.
“What we want to be sure of is there a criminal conspiracy and can we find it from the information that we know?”
Mr Harris said that it was an active consideration in the minds of gardaí when investigating these incidents.
However, he noted it had not yet been found to be the case.
In the absence of a national conspiracy, the Commissioner said gardaí were also examining the possibility of regional coordination on arson attacks.
Angela Willis, assistant commissioner for the Dublin Metropolitan Region, said four files were with the Director of Public Prosecution in relation to arson attacks.
She said this included an individual identified in relation to the burning of building which had been incorrectly identified as being an accommodation centre.
Ms Willis said online disinformation presents a challenge to gardai in the Dublin metropoliton region.
“We’ve had a premises burned where there was a suggestion online that it was linked to accommodation for a particular group of people.
“That was not the case. The premises was burned.”
Ms Willis said arson is a very serious offence which presents a “huge risk” to life, even when a building appears empty.
“There may be people inside there and where a fire is set, there is an immediate risk to life.”
Paul Cleary, Assistant Commissioner for the Eastern Region, said there were also false online reports about male accommodation centre occupants assaulting a child.
“It resulted in a fairly large protest on that particular centre due to the misinformation circulating online.”
He said gardaí were liaising with social media platforms to investigate these incidents.
Ms Willis added: “We have come together as recently as this week with all the senior investigating officers in the Dublin region to see if there are any commonalities between the different incidents within the city and also across the country.
“We are satisfied these are all localised incidents so far.”
She said gardai are continuing to investigate incidents and hope to make further arrests.
On a related matter, Mr Harris said abuse of politicians which crosses a criminal threshold is also subject to a national investigation under the SDU.
