Emergency services put through their paces in Cork nightclub

A knife-wielding attacker was neutralised by armed gardaí during a simulated multiple-stabbing attack and hostage standoff inside a Cork City nightclub — believed to be the first emergency services exercise of its kind in the country.

Gardaí stressed that yesterday’s critical incident exercise, codenamed Operation CorkCitySafe, was not designed to test the response of emergency services to a terrorist attack. But they said the lessons learned would help inform the response to potential terrorist incidents in the future.

Sgt Peter Murphy, who is involved in emergency planning in the southern Garda region, said such exercises are vital.