Dublin has been rocked by violence today (November 23) as the Irish capital witnessed a knife attack and disorder.

This afternoon, an attack using a knife injured three children and two adults at Parnell Square East in the north inner-city, which police said was not terrorism. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar added that a suspect had been detained.

This evening, events have escalated with vehicles belonging to Ireland's police force - An Garda Siochana - being damaged in disorder. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said a “complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology” is behind the chaos.

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“I think there’s disgraceful scenes in terms of a major investigation, the maintenance of a scene and the gathering of evidence,” he told media during a press conference at Mountjoy Garda Station. “We have a complete lunatic hooligan faction driven by far-right ideology, and also then this disruptive tendency engaged in serious violence.

“We are drafting in resources to deal with that and that will be dealt with properly. I’ve given full direction to our resources here in respect of making arrests and bringing offenders to justice.

An Garda Siochana at the scene in Dublin city centre after five people were injured, including three young children, following a serious public order incident which occurred on Parnell Square East shortly after 1.30pm

“It’s our responsibility to make sure that we police the streets, and part of that is we ask people to act responsibly and not to listen to the misinformation and rumour that is circulating on social media. The facts are being established, but the facts are still not clear on a lot of the rumour and the innuendo is being spread for malevolent purposes.”

Earlier today, Superintendent Liam Geraghty confirmed police were satisfied there was no terrorist link in the knife attack at 1.30pm.

“This is a very early stage of the investigation which is not even four hours old at this stage, but at this time An Garda Siochana is satisfied from our inquiries that there is no terror-related activity or related to any wider aspects in relation to this matter,” he said. “It would appear to be a standalone attack, and we need to determine the reasons behind that.”