Gardaí had to shred over 2,500 gun holsters because they were obsolete

Some 1,665 of the original tranche of holsters had been issued to serving members and were replaced. The remaining 910 holsters had never been issued operationally and were destroyed without ever being used. File picture Collins Courts

An Garda Siochana shredded close to 2,600 leather gun holsters after withdrawing them from service use “for safety reasons”.

In an update to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the force said that the 2,575 Sig and Walther leather holsters in question had been deemed “obsolete” and were “written off and destroyed” following the introduction of King Cobra Holsters for armed personnel.

Some 1,665 of the original tranche of holsters had been issued to serving members and were replaced. The remaining 910 holsters had never been issued operationally and were destroyed without ever being used.

The force said that the 2,575 holsters had been introduced at a cost of €89,092, though no additional cost had been incurred by destroying them prematurely.

The holsters in question had been at the centre of a number of controversies regarding their alleged operational unfitness – including a shooting incident involving a garda member outside the residence of the Israeli ambassador in June 2020 and the murder of Garda Colm Horkan by Stephen Silver one week later.

At the PAC meeting with the gardaí in June, Labour TD for Cork Eoghan Kenny had suggested that the total cost of the holsters had been closer to €500,000. Gardaí had not responded to a request for comment regarding the holster expenditure at the time of writing.

At that June meeting, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris noted that the holsters had been withdrawn following the recommendation of a “lessons-learned review”.

Evan Fitzgerald investigation

Separately, the garda update informed the PAC that just under €28,000 had been spent on overtime hours during the surveillance operation that led to the apprehension of Carlow shooter Evan Fitzgerald in Kildare in March 2024.

Mr Fitzgerald took his own life in early June at the Fairgreen Shopping centre in Carlow town after being observed walking through the centre while firing a shotgun into the air. His initial arrest had resulted after a covert garda operation ascertained that he and friends were seeking to obtain firearms via the dark web.

Prior to his arrest, gardaí had handed the firearms to Mr Fitzgerald and his colleagues via a process known as a controlled delivery.

In its update to the PAC, the force said that the operation to observe Mr Fitzgerald had “involved multiple live operations spanning various time periods”. Some 620 hours of overtime had been incurred.

Hotel stay

Regarding queries that a chief superintendent had stayed at the Westbury Hotel in Dublin during the visit of then US president Joe Biden to Ireland in 2023, the force said that “inquiries are currently ongoing” under the direction of the assistant commissioner with responsibility for governance and accountability.

At June’s PAC hearing, Mr Harris said it was the first he had heard of it.