Garda need to be armed with tasers - especially in rural areas, the Garda Representative Association has said. 

A high profile crime in Dublin last week has seen the issue of how to tackle crime debated by politicians and journalists.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who had previously backed arming Gardaí, ruled out supplying the force with weapons - insisting there is “real value” in an unarmed police force.

“We do have the Emergency Response Unit which is armed and we do have Armed Response Units in every division, so there are a lot more Gardaí that are armed than was the case in the past - and that is necessary,” he said.

“Certainly, in my conversations with the Garda Commissioner and also rank and file Gardaí, one thing they’ve impressed on me since I gave those comments was that having an unarmed police force is something of real value.”

Ireland is one of the few countries in the world where police are not routinely armed and the Garda Representative Association feels supplying their members with tasers would help tackle violent crime.

“Tasers are something the Garda Representative Association are very much in favour of having more of,” GRA President Brendan O’Connor told The Hard Shoulder.

“They are a use of force and they have to be strictly controlled but other police services that we do compare ourselves to - like Scotland - would have tasers available at a district level.

“So, in Ireland the only Guard carrying tasers are the members of the Armed Response Unit… the people you see in the big SUVs and the armed Gardaí.

“So, they’re available to use tasers and we would hope response times in urban areas would not be too bad.

“But in the country, places like Connemara, west Donegal, Kerry, Cork, even parts of the Midlands, you’re talking massive delays for the tasers to arrive on site.”

A member of the Garda Armed Support Unit takes part in a simulated anti-terror operation at the Docklands railway station in central Dublin.

Mr O’Connor described tasers as a “very effective deterrent” for reducing assaults and said other countries prioritise giving them to officers in rural areas.

“If we look at Scotland, they actually chose to give the tasers to the officers that operate in the Highlands alone because they were so far from backup,” he said.

“Whereas, we have the opposite; we have it centred on the more busy centres.”

Tasers are currently only issued to Gardaí who work in specialist firearms and protection units.

Main image: Members of the Garda Armed Support Unit take part in a simulated anti-terror operation at the Docklands railway station in central Dublin.