An environmental activist who caused £1,400 worth of damage to Trinity College in a protest against genetic engineering received the Probation Act yesterday.
Eanna Dowling (29), of Grove Park, Rathmines, walked free from Dublin District Court after admitting criminal damage to the Smurfit Building of Genetics early on March 13th.
Garda Kevin Moore told the court he was alerted by security staff at the college and found the defendant spray-painting a wall at about 12.35 a.m. Damage caused was calculated at £1,400.
Mr Edward Leavy, defending, said the defendant did not set out on a course of criminal damage but was protesting to highlight the genetic engineering experiments taking place in Trinity College.
Mr Leavy said it was "incongruous" that artificial means of growth and reproduction should be developed at a time when the Government was trying to stop the use of growth-promoters in rural Ireland and set aside land from agricultural production.
"We often see protests like this and indeed they sometimes interfere with our everyday lives, but looked at in a historical viewpoint they can be seen in a different light," said Mr Leavy.
He added that Trinity College had been able to remove all evidence of this protest.
Judge Timothy Crowley commented that genetic engineering might one day be used to clone humans.
He was told the defendant had no previous convictions and dismissed the charge under the Probation of Offenders Act.