AGSI ANNUAL CONFERENCE:GARDA COMMISSIONER Fachtna Murphy is to proceed with plans to establish armed Garda units in the regions to deal with armed sieges despite strong opposition from Garda sergeants and inspectors.
Mr Murphy told the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (Agsi) in Trim, Co Meath yesterday that he is still fully committed to maintaining An Garda Síochána as an unarmed force.
However, uniformed gardaí would be required to double as members of the armed units when needed because he "could not afford" to have dedicated armed units "sitting waiting for these armed incidents to happen".
"That's why we're putting in place a facility where uniformed members could change rapidly into a situation where they could deploy firearms. Particularly in rural Ireland these [armed incidents] do not happen very often but when they do happen we need to be in a position to respond."
The units would only be called upon to contain armed barricade or siege incidents pending the arrival of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU). Despite opposition from the Garda representative associations he said many of their members had already applied to join the new units.
Mr Murphy said the regional support unit proposal was being piloted in the southern region. Any difficulties that emerged could be resolved in a "common sense" fashion at that pilot stage.
Agsi yesterday formalised its opposition to the proposals. Delegates at the conference voted overwhelming in support of a motion calling on the association to lobby Mr Murphy to abandon the idea.
Agsi general secretary Joe Dirwan said the proposed units would arrive at an armed scene as a "second tier" response after uniformed unarmed officers initially dealt with the incident.
Before members of the regional support units began tackling an armed incident they would first be required to change out of their uniforms. They would also need to get approval to access firearms securely locked in their vehicles, activate a sign on their cars informing the public they were now operating as armed gardaí, and then take up their positions.
The resultant delay would mean they would not be in a position to offer an immediate response to serious incidents involving weapons.
"Some of the more serious confrontations are arising from domestic disputes, of which the gardaí will not have any advance notice," he told delegates.
The focus needed to be placed on training uniformed members to handle such situations, he said. Agsi was completely against the proposal for marked patrol cars to carry firearms.
The plan for the armed regional support units was put forward by the Garda Inspectorate in light of the shooting dead by gardaí of John Carthy at Abbeylara, Co Longford. The inspectorate believes the units will contain serious armed incidents pending the arrival of the ERU at a scene.
Sgt Eamonn Landy of the Dublin Metropolitan Region East division told conference delegates the three members of the Garda Inspectorate came from other jurisdictions where there was a culture of arming police forces. Ireland did not have the same weapons culture.
Sgt Séamus Boylan of the Sligo/Leitrim division said under the plan the public would have no idea which uniformed gardaí were carrying guns and which were not. He told delegates criminals would assume all uniformed members had access to guns, which would increase the threat to those members.
Sgt Christy Galligan of the Donegal division said if the plans went ahead he predicted a situation where all gardaí would be armed in the next decade.