A policeman is seriously injured in hospital after a night of “huge destruction by a riotous mob” in Dublin on Thursday.

Garda officers made 34 arrests after what police chief Drew Harris called the country’s worst public disorder “for decades”.

He told a press conference on Friday morning that 11 police vehicles had been destroyed and “numerous” officers injured in the violence which involved an “element of radicalisation”.

Thirteen shops were looted during the rioting that was triggered after at least three people were injured in a knife attack outside a school in the city centre.

A five-year-old girl and a teacher in her 30s remain in a “serious condition” in hospital, he added.