Detectives feel they are outgunned by criminals

Garda detectives feel they are now outgunned by crime gangs who are importing automatic weapons from Eastern Europe.

That is the chilling message from a senior Garda Representative Association official who said “the balance has been tipped” against ordinary detectives since Garda management withdrew the Uzi submachine gun from service.

Ultan Sherlock, a member of the GRA’s central executive committee, said that while the Emergency Response Unit was heavily armed with Heckler and Koch-manufactured MP7s, ordinary detectives were now limited to using handguns.

GRA president John Parker said that detectives on cash and explosives escorts were often only armed with handguns.

“The purpose of the Uzi was to hold off superior numbers of assailants as well as being a visible deterrent on protection duties and checkpoints.”

Security analyst Tom Clonan, a former army officer who was a guest speaker at the association’s conference in Westport, Co Mayo, said that soldiers deployed on cash escorts were never attacked because they were always equipped with high firepower.

“We wouldn’t send anybody out on a cash escort armed with automatic pistols. The minister [Alan Shatter] and the Garda commissioner [Martin Callinan] need to think long and hard about this. Some units have the MP7s, and more should be getting them. But, in the interim, they should roll back out the Uzis,” said Mr Clonan.

Mr Parker also claimed that cost-cutting was also hitting refresher training when it comes to using pepper spray and extendable batons.

He said gardaí used special canisters filled with water to simulate the discharge of pepper spray into a person’s eyes. However, he added that these canisters cost €12 each and he claimed they were very thin on the ground at present.

“In many cases gardaí are now being retrained with empty canisters which doesn’t have the same effect,” he said.

The US manufacturers of the extendable batons recommend refresher courses in their use be undertaken every three years, but in several cases gardaí have had no retraining since the batons were introduced in 2007.

“Despite recommendations that the force move to standardising handcuffs to the more effective rigid type, this has been shelved and it’s another cost-cutting casualty,” said Mr Parker.