TWO gardaí were attacked last weekend in Drimnagh when a group of youths charged at them and smashed the windscreen of their patrol car.

The male and female garda were taken to hospital after the assault but they did not sustain serious injuries.

The officers were standing in the vicinity of a pub in Drimnagh last Saturday night carrying out a drugs search of two individuals when they were attacked.

A gang of up to eight teenagers came around the corner and charged at them, knocking them both over. The gang then threw several rocks at the patrol car, smashing the back windscreen and breaking off one of the car's wing mirrors.

They then fled the scene. Detectives do not believe the teenagers were acquainted with the men they were searching and believe it was a random attack.

Gardaí are confident they have established the identity of the teenagers. They are aged between 14 and 19 and are all locals from the Drimnagh area.

Arrests are expected to take place shortly. A garda source said the two gardaí were more "shook up" than injured. "It could have been a lot more serious than it was. But incidents like this are taken very seriously. No one wants to see such blatant disrespect and violence towards the people whose job it is to uphold the law," said the garda.

The incident is one of several targeting gardaí around Dublin in recent months. Officers have expressed concern at the level of violence young teenagers are displaying towards one another and gardai in certain situations.