Aerospace company’s Dublin office attacked over alleged links to Israeli arms producer

A Garda investigation has begun after pro-Palestinian protesters caused “criminal damage” to the south Dublin office of a company over alleged ties to an Israeli military manufacturer.

Acra Control, a Dublin aerospace company founded by four DCU graduates in 1991, is a supplier of data-acquisition systems and networks for both defence and commercial aerospace markets.

Its office in Clonskeagh was targeted in the early hours of Monday morning, with footage of the incident, shared by group Palestine Action Éire, showing three people smashing office windows and spray-painting the building red.

Acra Control was sold to US company Curtiss-Wright, which provides products to the aerospace, defence and energy industries, in 2011 for some €42 million.

Protests were held at the office in Clonskeagh earlier this year after the Ditch news website reported it had supplied components to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms producer.

Citing documents obtained by the news website, the Ditch reported that components were sent to Elbit Systems’s plant in Ramat Hasharon in Israel in September last year.

During the incident on Monday morning, members of the group also spray-painted messages that read: “drop Elbit”, and “pal action”. They also carried an Irish flag with messaging which read: “IDF suppliers out of neutral Ireland.”

A Garda spokesman said gardaí responded to an incident of criminal damage that occurred at about 3am on Monday. “Investigations are ongoing,” he said.

In a statement, Palestine Action Éire said three of its members were behind the incident, one of whom said they were “driven by empathy and solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice and freedom”.

“Despite the risks,” the group member said they “refuse to stand by while the weapons of genocide are manufactured at our doorstep with impunity and the complicity of our Government”.

“We all know what is happening in Gaza is a genocide, yet our Government fails to act in any material way, let alone cut ties with Israel.”

Palestine Action Éire said it had targeted the building previously in June, adding that, at that time, it promised to “strike again if the company didn’t cut its ties to Elbit Systems”.

Acra Control has been contacted for comment.