Members of three animal rights organisations entered a restaurant in Dublin city centre on Friday evening, took nine lobsters from a tank in the window and released them into the sea at Clontarf.
The incident happened at the Ka Shing Chinese restaurant on Wicklow Street at 7.30pm when the restaurant was open and people were dining inside.
The groups - National Animal Rights Association, Direct Action For Animals, and the Alliance For Animal Rights - say they carried out the 'liberation' because it was a matter of 'life-and death' for the lobsters in question.
“Would you boil a cat or dog alive? No. So why do people think it’s okay to do this to a lobster? They feel pain. They feel fear. They suffer. Yet, over 20million lobsters are killed in this way every year. How is it still legal?” said Laura Broxson, spokeswoman for the National Animal Rights Association.
Asked why this restaurant in particular was targeted, Ms Broxson said it was because the tank was right at the window, making it an “obvious choice.”
“No-one tried to stop us. We were in and out in a minute and a half… We felt a moral obligation to do something about this,” she said.
She said charges were being brought over the incident and that she was due to give a statement to gardaí this week.
“But whatever happens, it is a very small price to pay for those lobsters’ freedom. We liberated them openly, because we are 100 per cent behind our belief that it was the morally correct thing to do. What we did was an act of compassion, and we have no regrets.”
A member of staff at the restaurant, who did not wish to give his name, confirmed the incident took place, that about eight or nine people were involved, and that it had been reported to gardaí.
“We had no idea who they were. They didn’t make themselves known to us. They asked for a table,” he said.
It was while staff were checking whether there was a table available that the lobsters were taken, he said.
He said staff members gave chase but the group ran off in different directions.
A Garda spokesman said the incident was under investigation and no arrests had been made