Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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304. To ask the Minister for Defence the number of suspect devices the army disposal unit dealt with, by county, in 2015 to date, in tabular form. [45821/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Justice and Equality and An Garda Síochána have primary responsibility for the internal security of the State. Among the roles assigned to the Defence Forces in the White Paper on Defence is the provision of Aid to the Civil Power (ATCP) which, in practice, means to assist An Garda Síochána when requested to do so.

The Defence Forces Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams respond when a request for assistance is made by An Garda Síochána in dealing with a suspect device. Following post operation analysis these callouts are then categorised and this would include viable devices, hoaxes, false alarms, post-blast analysis and the removal of unstable chemicals in laboratories.

The numbers of EOD call outs and the numbers of viable devices dealt with up to 17 December 2015, by county, are set out in the following table.