Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

It is standard practice for visiting Heads of State and other similar VIPs to make the Government, via the Department of Foreign Affairs, aware of any intention to visit or pass through the State so that any necessary security arrangements may be put in place to ensure an incident-free event from the perspectives of both the visiting VIP and the local communities. In the case of two stopovers by US President Bush at Shannon Airport on 1 and 5 March last, this standard practice was fully adhered to. In response, the Garda authorities put in place security arrangements at Shannon Airport commensurate with the risk associated with the profile and standing of a President of the United States of America. These arrangements included the deployment of Garda personnel supported by the Defence Forces acting as an aid to the civil power.

It is not the practice and it would be contrary to the public interest to detail the specific security arrangements in place at Shannon, including the number of Garda personnel involved. In this regard, I hope that the Deputy will appreciate that revealing such information about past security arrangements would be manifestly detrimental to the very purpose of invoking such arrangements in the future.

I have previously informed this House that the Garda authorities deployed 281 members to police the Love Ulster parade on 25 February, with an additional 67 member detachment of the public order unit held discreetly in reserve. As the appalling scenes of rioting developed, a further 138 members arrived to assist, including a 47-strong additional group of members drawn from the public order unit. Although for sound security reasons I am not in a position to detail the precise number of gardaí deployed at Shannon, I can say, perhaps to the Deputy's disappointment, that numbers did not exceed those initially deployed at the rally in Dublin city centre, contrary to some media reports. There were fewer people at Shannon for the Bush visits than were initially deployed for the Love Ulster rally in O'Connell Street.

I am not in a position to provide details of the costs incurred by the Garda Síochána in respect of the Love Ulster rally or the Shannon stopovers, as this information is still being collated by Garda management and is not yet available. I wish, however, to comment upon the attempted juxtaposition of policing strengths at the Love Ulster rally and the security arrangements at Shannon Airport. We are dealing with two entirely separate and distinct kinds of Garda operation. The two events were entirely separate in nature and, consequently, demanded an entirely separate response for which comparisons are invalid, except to say that, contrary to what was printed in newspapers, the number of gardaí deployed for President Bush's visits to Shannon was smaller than the number initially deployed to police the Love Ulster rally.

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