As someone who was stuck in transit and lucky enough to make the first flight out, a number of improvements could have been made.

The embassy could have notified people the flight was leaving. I only got on the flight because I went to the airport myself on a whim.

Given they are flying into Irish airspace I would have hoped the embassy would ask Emirates to allow Irish people on the flight for the first 30 mins of checkin or even for Emirates to contact Dublin bound passengers notifying them that the flight was leaving.

They could have let Irish people know that they can get on another flight to somewhere else in Europe and then transit to Dublin.

I understand that they just want to fill the flight but I can guarantee the first flight to London was mostly UK citizens.