EUROPEAN TERROR ATTACKS and the murderous Hutch/Kinahan feud prompted a revolution in Irish armed policing as gardaí took lessons from Europe to change how they worked, the leader of the country’s specialist firearms units has said.
The Journal recently sat down with three senior members of the garda Special Tactics and Operations Command (STOC) to discuss Ireland’s transformation from discreet armed operations to overt patrolling by highly trained and equipped units such as the Armed Support Unit and Emergency Response Unit.
STOC has responsibility for managing the gardaí’s Emergency Response Unit (ERU) and the Armed Support Units (ASU) across the country.
The ERU is Ireland’s tier one policing intervention unit – essentially a special forces armed response to counterterror, hostage rescue and other high-risk armed incidents.
The ASU are the local units that handle armed response across divisions in the country. It started its life as the Regional Support Unit in 2008 in Cork and Limerick and played a critical role during the Limerick city gangland feud which claimed more than 20 lives.
The unit is led by Chief Superintendent Kevin Daly and Superintendent Enda Grogan, with Inspector Dick Fahy in charge of specialist training.
They spoke about how the ERU has transitioned from its early incarnation as the Special Task Force to its modern special forces structure, and how the ASU seen on our streets now is the realisation of a 15-year journey for Irish policing.
Fahy has been on the force for 40 years, much of it in armed response, and is now leading the modernisation of armed policing through the STOC training unit.
He recalls the early days of the Special Task Force which was formed in 1977. This was the first garda foray into tactical policing.
The IRA campaign was in full swing in the North with occasional incidents south of the border.
Fahy said: “I’ve seen a huge modernisation. I mean, I went into the special task force back in 1985 when there was no body armour, there was no training.”
“The weaponry we had was Smith and Wesson six-shot revolvers and the Uzi, an Israeli submachine gun, designed for close quarter combat.”
The 1970s was a time of heightened global terror threats as Middle Eastern groups and European political extremists launched kidnappings, indiscriminate shootings, bomb attacks and hijackings.
There was also the failed German military and police operation to prevent the murder of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics by Palestinian militants. This prompted many policing organisations across the world to establish specialist firearms teams to deal with similar incidents.
In Ireland, the military formed the Army Ranger Wing while the gardaí formed the Special Task Force to respond if a similar incident happened here.
At that time gardaí visited special police groups such as the GSG9 in Germany and gendarmerie in Belgium where they gathered information on selection, training and operational methods.
Those gardaí worked on operations across Ireland but eventually they would formalise that work and a group of gardaí received training from the Army Ranger Wing. This formed the Anti-Terrorist Unit and out of that came the ERU.
Fahy said that the unit was “stagnant” for a number of years but he said there were two key moments.
The first was in 1998 when a major review took place into the operation of the ERU.
“In 1999 a group of 10 of us went over to the US and we did work with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team.
“This was the first time we saw how to do room entries, corridor clearance, dynamic search techniques,” he said.
The team came back from that trip and began ordering equipment like body armour and specialist kit.
“The Job [garda slang for the organisation] saw value in it and started getting proper gear. We started doing proper close quarter tactics,” he added.
The ERU returned to the US and visited US marines where they learned sniping techniques, and later did similar training in Germany.
During our interview it was clear that there were several moments throughout the history of the ERU that changed it.
Daly referenced the incident in which ERU members shot and killed John Carthy after a siege in Abbeylara, County Longford in April 2000.
Carthy had been treated for bipolar affective disorder. On 19 April 2000, he armed himself with a shotgun. When gardaí, who had been contacted by family, arrived at the house Carthy fired at them.
He was shot by the ERU as he came out of the building carrying a shotgun. An FBI report found that the manner in which the siege was dealt with was not in keeping with international best practice.
A number of enquiries, including one by the US FBI, were undertaken. A tribunal, under the stewardship of Mr Justice Robert Barr, followed. It examined the handling of the incident and its findings completely modernised the ERU and how gardaí respond to barricaded individual, after finding significant shortcomings in the garda response.
It wasn’t only police-focused; there was also an examination of how gardaí provided information to the media and how journalists, particularly broadcasters, report on such incidents.
One key recommendation was the formation of an armed response that ultimately would create the ASU.
Daly said that the Abbeylara incident informed positive, much-needed changes to how the ERU operated in the early 2000s but he said that there are other moments that have had a more dramatic change. Key to that was the Hutch/Kinahan feud.
The Armed Support Units were known as Regional Support Units but very rapidly, Daly said, there was a realisation that Dublin particularly needed a dedicated tactical team to handle the gun murders on its streets.
“For us it was 2016. At that time, it became the norm for policing to have a specialist uniformed armed response in your capital city but also all over the country.
“We also set up a dedicated STOC training unit to ensure that they were getting the best training. That was very important.
“I know Abbeylara and the Barr Report are very important in history, but I think 2016 was a big moment. Organised crime in Dublin was at full tilt and that meant that our response needed to be visible and also meant it had to be at the top level,” he said.
Before that the response in many areas outside of Dublin – such as in Limerick during the feud there – was provided by local detectives. Limerick was supplemented with the presence of the ERU.
That changed with the arrival of the ASU in divisions across the country.
This response model spread out of the Capital and across the country and Daly said it normalised armed policing across the State.
“From then on the ASU were accepted everywhere. Now they are an integral part of the first response in the Dublin Metropolitan Region to any armed incidents or critical incidents such as firearms and knives.
“The unarmed guard on the ground is delighted to have the support of these people who are appropriately trained and equipped to deal with these incidents,” Daly added.
The ASU has access to less lethal equipment such as bean bag shotguns, tasers and pepper spray.
Grogan, now Superintendent in the unit, had worked as an ERU operator and he said that he had noticed the public’s change in perspective also particularly in areas where there is more need for their services.
Grogan said that it is not just the armed interventions that the ASU is now adept at – the medical training members receive is also playing a critical role in being a first response when stabbings and other incidents happen across the city.
He said that at a recent stabbing incident on Dorset Street in Dublin city centre, the ASU gardaí were credited with saving the life of the victim by doctors.
The STOC members we spoke to could not comment on any ongoing investigations. The independent probe into the shooting of George Nkencho by an ASU officer is in train and sources have said that a number of measures have been taken ahead of the findings by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.
There has also been criticism from some politicians and other people outside of the policing environment in regard to how armed policing is deployed.
In the interviews with STOC, it was clear that they consider deployments carefully.
Grogan said that the ASU and ERU have 24-hour access to specialists in the Central Mental Hospital who work with negotiators in the STOC.
Daly said: “I think we have to move with the times and there is huge scrutiny, accountability and transparency, which is important. We have to meet that with the highest standards of training, the best equipment for our people, for their own safety, but also to minimise the risks to them and to the public.
“Obviously, we have to make sure that everything we do is lawful, necessary, proportionate, and that level of proportionality then also requires us to have less lethal options.
“We have to be able to use them in an escalatory manner, in an appropriate manner. So when those standards are applied, it means that the training, the equipment and the selection of the right people is vital,” he said.
The 2016 change in direction also meant that the ERU has shifted away from a response policing model and are now closer to a Special Forces Unit.
Grogan defines the section as a “tier one” strategic asset – this is a designation given internationally to the elite of firearms intervention teams.
There is very regular training now with European police forces through the Atlas which is run by Europol and has 37 member states involved. The ERU operators travel regularly to these events across Europe. There are also connections with the EU’s High Risk Network which provides information and training to specialist firearms teams across Europe.
“2016 was like a T-junction; there was that defined separation. The ERU was left as a dedicated tier one unit and they offer an advanced level of skill to specialist covert policing in terms of organised criminal groups and anti terrorism,” Grogan said.
This change in status has given the ERU scope to work on other capabilities with a particular skillset in close protection. Members have travelled to Kyiv with Taoisigh and other ministers.
They have also performed that task at visits by US President Joe Biden, British royals and other dignitaries.
Daly, Fahy and Grogan repeatedly stress the importance of connections with the Army Ranger Wing and the broader European policing ecosystem. They said their tactics have changed from those learnings.
Daly said that the nature of armed policing would change but that there is a “genuine commitment to improving” across senior ranks in An Garda Síochána. There are now regular reviews of operational methods.
“So what we do is we look at where we are. We’re looking at the best international practice by engaging with international colleagues, and then we come back and see how can we improve and it is a continuous improvement that we need for the ERU and for the Armed Support Unit.
“We are at a very high standard at the moment but we can always improve and can always learn. So we need to keep going and responding to how the policing environment changes as these new challenges emerge, internationally and nationally,” the Chief Superintendent said.
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