Irish Examiner view: Citizens must have their say over Tasers 

Garda group says Ireland does not have enough armed cover spread

Garda Representative Association members at the GRA conference in Westport, Mayo, voting in favour of the force being issued with Tasers. Picture: Paul Mealey

Stab vests, body-worn video, a personal Taser for every officer. Perhaps this is just the correct moment for Paul Verhoeven to release the director’s cut of his dark 1987 sci-fi satire Robocop, which he has just done.

The bionic personality inside the armour had an Irish name, Murphy, who had been an ordinary officer on the mean streets of Detroit, taking on the drug gangs with all their attendant violence. That sense of isolation in the face of danger is not confined to the fantasy world.