New law gives clear rights on defence of self and property, says Garda chief

GARDA COMMISSIONER Martin Callinan has said that while the courts would decide how much force homeowners could use against intruders, he believed new legislation gave people clear and strong rights to defend themselves and their property.

While refusing to be drawn on two recent cases in which property owners shot and wounded suspected intruders, the commissioner said such incidents would be judged on the circumstances that led to them.

“The real acid test will be when some of these cases come to court in the determination of what’s appropriate and what isn’t,” he said at the launch of a new crime prevention strategy in Dublin yesterday.

“But we’ve a very, very strong threshold in terms of reaching criminal culpability and rightly so. The DPP’s office are well capable of assessing the merits and demerits of people who maybe are perceived to transgress beyond what is reasonable force. But people are entitled to defend their homes; that’s clear in the legislation.”

The Criminal Law (Defence and the Dwelling) Act 2011, enacted in January, allows for reasonable force by people who believe they need to use it to protect those in dwellings from assault, to protect property, to prevent a crime or to make an arrest. The law no longer requires a homeowner to retreat from a burglar, and extends to lands immediately around a dwelling.

The commissioner said while burglaries had been rising in recent years, virtually all other crime categories had shown decreases.

He did not believe that people’s fear of crime would rise when the planned campaign of Garda station closures had been completed, saying the concept was aimed at freeing up gardaí from stations so that the policing service could improve.

While he said the investigation into a sophisticated and primed 20kg bomb found in the Phoenix Park in Dublin on Monday evening was still in its early stages, it was clear the device was significant. “This isn’t the normal improvised explosive device that we have seen in more recent times and associated with the criminal fraternity.”

The commissioner made his remarks at the launch of the Supporting Safer Communities Campaign, which begins today and runs until Monday.