A GARDA WHO came under sustained gunfire as he rescued a family at a domestic incident has said most gardaí who carry firearms are not trained adequately to protect themselves.
Detective Garda Padraig Harrington, who is stationed in the Bridewell in Cork City, today told the Garda Representative Association (GRA) conference in Mayo about an incident near Kinsale in County Cork in 2014.
An 18-year-old man, armed with a shotgun, had barricaded himself into his rural home at 11pm.
Harrington and other gardaí were called to rescue the family. As they escorted them out of the house they came under fire from the teenage gunman.
“Because we do go into situations. Back in 2014 I went to an incident in Belgooly [Co Cork] with a number of guards from Cork and we were waiting for the armed support unit to be mobilised and there were five shots fired at us and we had to evacuate the family.
“And tactically, was that the right thing to do? I still don’t know. It was a successful operation but I still don’t know if we did the right thing,” he said.
In Ireland, there are armed specialist garda teams such as the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) based in Dublin who act as de facto garda special forces. Locally, there are Armed Support Units (ASU) and there are also plain clothes gardaí and detectives in stations armed with Sig Sauer handgun.
While the ERU, ASU and some gardaí in other specialist units are trained in specialist tactics to protect themselves from incoming fire, detectives and plain clothes gardaí are not.
Traditionally, detectives were given handguns for self defence because their work involved dealing with paramilitaries but that has evolved into the plain clothes officers, particularly outside of urban areas, acting as an armed response
It has been previously mooted that firearms would be taken away from the detectives and the system moved to a British model of armed response units but this has not yet materialised.
The detectives and gardaí on regular policing units undergo a short five-day course in which they learn to safely handle the firearm and shoot at targets.
The training does include a one-day course with a Firearms Training Simulator (FATS) which uses videos to simulate armed incidents. They must also do at least two practice shootings at a range per year.
Harrington believes this is not adequate.
“Once you have those three shoots, that’s all the training you require to get your gun licence again for next year.
“That’s what we’re looking for around the country – tactical training,” he said.
Harrington said that the death of Garda Tony Golden at a domestic violence incident shows the danger of such cases.
He went into a domestic situation where tactically now you’d be told not to go into unless life-threatening. He went in to assist the partner of someone and was shot dead.
“So there is risk out there. With the expansion of the armed support unit the risk is diminished, compared back to in 2013 where they weren’t available to us, they had to be called in and the nearest unit was Limerick, there were not enough lads in Cork
“It took them a number of hours to get mobilised, so we were down there about two hours before they arrived.
“All I’m looking for is that there is tactical training, physical training so that if you come on a situation you know how to deal with it,” he added.
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