Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was shocked to hear the latest statistics from the Garda Representative Association, GRA, conference this morning, which revealed that 600 gardaí were injured in the line of duty last year, 46% of which were directly as a result of an assault. Gardaí are also being spat at and assaulted by a small sinister minority at some water charge protests. Alarmingly, a new trend appears to have emerged whereby gardaí are being trolled on social media with money offered online to obtain the names and addresses of gardaí policing such protests. At present, gardaí have extendable batons, pepper spray and firearms but nothing in between and what is needed is a deterrent that is effective but which, unlike a firearm, is not designed to be lethal. The current riots in the United States follow a number of previous fatal shootings by police in which firearms were used instead of tasers. Although the misuse of tasers has resulted in relatively minute numbers of deaths globally, they were introduced in the United States as non-lethal weapons to be used by police to subdue potentially dangerous people who otherwise would have been subjected to a firearm. In 2009, the Police Executive Research Forum showed that the number of officers injured dropped by 76% when tasers were introduced. Although I strongly believe it should be used as a last resort, I support the use of tasers if and when the situation merits it. As such, I am calling from resources to be made available to facilitate these.