Man holed up in empty playschool with imitation shotgun arrested in Navan 

The man gave himself up after lengthy dialogue with trained Garda negotiators.

A young man armed with an imitation shotgun, who was holed up in an empty playschool, has given himself up after lengthy dialogue with trained Garda negotiators.

The man is being detained under mental health legislation. A doctor has been sought to assess him and gardaí will carry out what recommendation follows.

Members of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) and the Armed Support Unit (ASU) scrambled to respond to the incident early this morning.

The drama unfolded in a housing estate in Flowerhill, Navan, Co Meath, at the rear of a local playschool.

The Garda Special Tactics & Operations Command (STOC) was alerted once the call came through about the male armed with a firearm.

STOC is the central Garda section that responds to armed incidents and barricade-type scenarios. The National Negotiation Unit (NNU) is the lead agency to any barricade situations and is solely responsible for any attempts to engage with the party concerned.

The special intervention units are fully briefed on the situation and, as much as possible, kept in the background to allow negotiations to proceed.

The ERU and ASU are also part of STOC and come under the same overall command structure.

The NNU engaged in lengthy efforts to talk to the young male, which continued through the morning and into the early afternoon.

Eventually, the man agreed to surrender his weapon and exit the facility peacefully. The young man was arrested and taken to a local station.

Garda statement

A statement issued by Garda HQ said: “This morning, Monday 27th October 2025, gardaí and emergency services attended the scene of an incident at a business property in Flowerhill, Navan, Co Meath.

“The incident was subsequently resolved this afternoon. Arising from the incident, an adult male has been arrested and is currently detained under provisions of Section 12 of the Mental Health Act, 2001.” 

This provision allows gardaí to take someone into custody where there are reasonable grounds for believing the person is “suffering from a mental disorder” and because of that there is a “serious likelihood” of the person causing serious and immediate damage to themselves or other people.

“This was a hostage barricade situation since early this morning,” one source said. “Cordons and national units were put in place — the Armed Support Unit, the ERU and negotiators — all under the control of a scene commander.” 

The source said that after lengthy negotiations, the man came out peacefully and he was subsequently arrested.

Garda HQ had sent out a ‘media blackout’ request earlier in the day, pending the outcome of the incident.

In 2022, there were 112 negotiator activations. Crisis intervention, mental health barricades, and domestic/criminal barricades were the main area of work carried out by negotiators.