Take the gun out of Ireland
One of the conclusions of the Barr Tribunal into the shooting at Abbeylara is that the arrival of the ERU on the crime scene was more of a liability than an asset. Their deployment was not even requested by the garda officer in charge. John Carthy's psychiatrist, Dr David Shanley, appeared to be more than capable of defusing the Abbeylara incident without any loss of life and the absence of firearms.
The number of firearm offences, both possession and discharging, increased from 450 to 600 in 2001 in the Dublin metropolitan area it was up by 84%. As Labour's Joe Costello correctly reiterates, 300 serious crimes are being committed every day in this country. How in God's name will the minister's fight-fire-with-fire psychology address these appalling statistics?
Another by-product of legally-held weapons is the relationship between their availability and our annual suicide figures. Consultant psychiatrist Dr John Connolly of Castlebar hospital readily identifies that stricter laws to tighten gun controls and their availability would seriously reduce the annual suicide figure of 30 by firearm methods.
One solution to compromise on the non-arming of our Gardaí is the introduction of electric stun guns. Last year, Fine Gael's John Deasy suggested a one-year trial run with this method of policing similar to our counterparts in Britain the US has operated this system for over 20 years. The stun gun, or Taser system, produces a 50,000 volt charge that disables temporarily, and is particularly useful for crowd control and alcohol-related street violence.
There is an obligation on Mr McDowell to scrap the notion of armed gardaí and produce the promised 2,000 garda recruits and tackle the firearm crime situation with policing intelligence rather that more violence.
Our Government appear to be dedicated to taking the gun out of Irish politics. Why not go one further and take the gun completely out of Ireland?
Kevin Jordan,
Village View,
Clashmore,
Co Waterford.
