It was decided that Tuesday afternoon at 2pm would be the best time opportunity to gain access to the building. At 11am an activist of the Free Dessie O'Hare Campaign confirmed that the same Garda was on duty, so we all arranged to meet in St. Stephen's Green at 1:45. All activists made there way over to the park entrance facing the government building. At 1:55 the female Garda keeping to her routine left her post and made her way over to her car so as to sit and wait for her replacement to come on duty. Activists bolted out of the park armed with banners and posters and made their way across the road and entered through the revolving doors of the government building to the shock and dismay of the two receptionists. It was immediately made known to them that it was a peaceful protest organized to draw attention to the continued refusal of the Irish government to release Dessie O'Hare.

At this time the extremely agitated female Garda came barging into the reception and roared with a number of expletives that we must have been waiting for her to get into her car. She demanded that we leave at once, that it was a government building, and that we were breaking the law. I interceded to calm her down and told her to take a chill pill, that we were not going to be lectured on law breaking particularly when the Irish government has by its actions totally ignored a high court ruling which recognized Dessie O'Hare as a qualifying prisoner under the terms of the GFA. This seemed to make her worse, she started roaring and screaming at us to get out. I refused her request and told her that we were engaging in a peaceful protest. She stormed out of the building to get reinforcements. One of the activists took a number of photos with a digital camera and then left the building to put the camera off site.

A few minutes later a number of Garda reinforcements arrived and we took a collective decision to leave the building and continue our protest outside. Six Special Branch men who proceeded to take names and addresses of all Free Dessie O'Hare activists soon joined us. After an hour we called a halt to the protest and decided to split up in pairs so as to distract the attentions of the Special Branch. Not long after I received a phone call from wheelchair-bound Eddie McGarrigle, co-coordinator of the Free Dessie O'Hare Campaign, who explained that he and a female activist were stopped and forcibly searched by the Special Branch who demanded that they hand over the digital camera. Eddie told them that he or his companion didn't have a camera on his possession. They then physically lifted him up to see was he sitting on the camera and removed the back cushion of his wheelchair to search for any hidden objects. When they couldn't find anything they soon left to harass other activists.

For the attention of the Special Branch, photographs of yesterday's event are below.