Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. As he knows, the regional armed support unit does not operate on a 24-7 basis in Cork city. If an incident occurred, gardaí and detectives might have to wait for members of the armed support unit to travel from Limerick, up to an hour and a half away. If a guy is going crazy with a knife or a crowbar, that is not much good to the front-line gardaí and detectives who are trying to deal with that situation.

They are telling me that last year's tactical awareness training really brought home to detectives how exposed they are without non-lethal Tasers. If they have to deal with an incident in the absence of the regional armed support unit, they will be forced to deploy their gun. As the Minister knows, the guidelines are that if a gun is to be used, it is to be used in close proximity to the upper body which will generally result in death, which is not a position they want to be in. They have strongly called on Garda management to provide non-lethal Tasers to assist them in their front-line work.

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