Gardaí faced 1,438 assaults and obstructions in 5 years

There have been almost 1,500 incidents of assaulting or obstructing gardaí in the last five years.

The figures have led to renewed calls from Garda associations for greater legal and physical protection.

Figures provided to the Fine Gael Kildare North TD Bernard Durkan, show 1,438 incidents of assault, obstruction, and resisting arrest have been recorded between 2010 and 2014.

The number has risen from 251 in 2010 to a peak of 332 in 2012, dropping to 262 in 2013, and rising again to 282 last year.

There have been 84 incidents in the first three months of 2015. This could reach 335 if the trend continues over the year.

The Garda Representative Association said the figures “underestimated” the true number of assaults on gardaí, which it put at between 800 and 1,100 per year.

“Over the years, we have been told that the number of assaults ranges from two-three per day, on average,” a spokesman said.

The GRA held an urgent meeting with Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan last April over a campaign of violent intimidation of members at a station in Carbury, north Kildare.

The six gardaí based there have received death threats from local criminals. Earlier in April, Carbury Garda Station was shot at and there was an attempted arson attack. One garda was also followed home after work.

Mr Durkan described the death threats to the gardaí as “sinister” and said it was “a very serious matter for them and their families”.

He said there was a “growing disregard” for gardaí, not just at the hands of organised crime but also among sections of wider society.

Two weeks ago, a judge handed down a four-year sentence to a man after he assaulted a Garda sergeant, leaving him with just 25% vision in one eye.

Sgt David Haughney said he feared he was going to die on the night of the assault, in which a rock hit him in the face during violent disorder in east Cork last December. Luke Quilligan, aged 20, of Ballymartin, Dungourney, was given a four-year sentence.

“If gardaí are to face danger on behalf of society,” the GRA spokesman said, “then society should afford members of the force every protection”.