With Halloween falling on a Sunday officers are expecting thousands of revellers to converge on local venues over the next few days.

A three-day ‘diffing’ event scheduled to take place in Manorcunningham is expected to draw a further influx of visitors.

“With the nightclubs being opened again we will have extra people around the town,” said Superintendent Michael Finan.

“With the clubs reopening it pushes things later and it means that we are dealing with public order later into the morning.

“So we will have extra officers out on foot patrol but it’s also the case that if people can behave themselves, we won’t intervene.”

As well as public order patrols, gardaí along with environmental health officers from the HSE will also be monitoring businesses and their compliance with Covid-19 rules.

“In terms of Covid regulations, people know what they should be doing to keep themselves and their families safe. In relation to that, environmental officers will be out checking businesses to make sure they are carrying out the necessary checks.”

There will also be extra police on the roads monitoring a three day diffing event being held in Manorcunningham.

The gathering comes four months after a highly criticised “unofficial rally” in Letterkenny.

June’s event led to 53 arrests and sparked complaints of “chaos” where roads were blocked and residents afraid to leave their homes.

Unlike June, this weekend is an official event and Superintendent Finan said they are not expecting it to be on the same scale as four months ago.

“It is an organised event but we will still have extra road policing units and extra checkpoints out.

“I don’t think we are going to see the same numbers but we will still have a presence around the town just trying to keep a lid on things.

“I would also take this opportunity to appeal to people not to be lighting fireworks. They are illegal and they can be a cause of great distress and should therefore not be used in any circumstance.

“Our priority will be keeping people safe, keeping road users safe and making sure that residents in the town are not disturbed,” Superintendent Finan added.