Illustration: Angry Logic comics totally skewered the Nyardai in #rabble8. Would you like to see your work in rabble? Then get in touch.

While Fine Gael politicians are immune from prosecution others get the 6am knock. Cellach takes a look at who’s calling the shots in political policing.

Fired Retired Commissioner Martin Callinan’s former personal assistant Chief SuperNintendo Orla McPartlin ain’t one to take kindly to the threat of potential public order offences. That’s why she has refused permission to the Anti Austerity Alliance to go door to door shaking the auld charity bucket. Could be used to commission an illegal act you see, directly or indirectly.

No longer responsible for writing the letters that definitely-not-fired Callinan couldn’t be bothered, she is bringing law and order to the mean streets of, er, Dublin South, using a section of a 53 year old act originally intend to stop naïve burghers accidentally donating sponds to the arms purchasing budget of the IRA.

The detaining of a minister in her car for two hours is, of course, completely comparable, in letter and spirit, to fundraising for the purpose of launching Mountbatten into space.

Cora Sherlock’s brother’s rag, Der Liberal, has pointed out that this is probably unconstitutional, but to be honest, their record on constitutional matters is pretty dodgy so let’s leave that alone for the minute. Besides, with desperate men like Paul Murphy on the streets, threatening innocent citizens with the waving of placards and minor traffic disruption, it’s probably time to suspend the constitution, and habeus corpus, in this time of national emergency.

With any luck our blue clad hero will be able to use the Street and House to House Elections Act, 1962, to suspend other potential sources of public order offences in her division, such as, for example, gigs at Marley Park, where 32 people were arrested in 2014. Mind you MCD gouge rather than collect, and you have to go to them, so it’s probably not covered by the act.

What’s also not covered by the act, in its current form on irishstatutebook.ie, produced by the Office of the Attorney General (he wasn’t flipping fired and accordingly the Labour appointed Attorney General is not blatantly and obviously incompetent OK?), is the scenario whereby the Chief Superintendent refusing the permit is a woman, as the act quite clearly states ‘he’.

But it’s an old act, from a different time, and so obviously we should assume that ‘he’ means ‘he or she’ and ‘commission an offence’ means ‘organise a protest’.

Well actually, one of those assumptions is ludicrous, but there you go. An Nyardai are always prepared to make ludicrous assumptions, in the name of law, order and Joan Burton’s divine right not to be confronted by the peasantry.

McPartlin became head honcho of the South Dublin Division in June of last year in the reshuffle by the then acting Commissioner, Noreen O’Sullivan, whose husband leads the crack Paul Murphy surveillance task force, Operation Mizen.

Said Commissioner has denied asking a senior Garda his views on ‘left-wing political extremism’. Accordingly, it has to be assumed that McPartlin was also not asked this question, and it also has to be assumed, that since she could never have been asked it, her views on ‘left-wing political extremism’ would have played no role in her promotion from letter writing in the Phoenix Park to D.M.R. Dublin South.