Garda HQ orders 20,000 units of pepper spray in wake of Dublin riots

Garda management has now placed an order for the incapacitant spray and it is due to arrive in around five weeks.

Garda HQ has ordered 20,000 units of high-strength pepper spray, which will given to all gardaí.

The move, announced three weeks ago after the Dublin riots, will see the double-strength spray, currently provided to specialist units, allocated to frontline gardaí.

Garda management has now placed an order for the incapacitant spray and it is due to arrive in around five weeks.

The 20,000 consignment is described as an initial order.

Public order units and armed response units have had the stronger spray, but the bulk of members on the streets have not been armed with it.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris revealed his intention to extend the deployment of the stronger spray at the end of November, following the riots that saw unprecedented levels of public disorder on the streets of the city centre.

Detectives are investigating serious assaults on 12 garda members injured in the riots as well as a smaller number of less serious assaults on members of the public.

The commissioner is due to give details of the order — and the organisation’s wider response to public order policing — at this afternoon’s meeting with the Policing Authority.