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GARDAÍ FEEL THAT their lives are being put at risk due to a decision by garda authorities to withdraw the Uzi submachine gun from detective units, TheJournal.ie can reveal.
The decision to withdraw the Uzi was taken in March last year after a review by garda authorities. One of the reasons for the withdrawal of the gun was that it was deemed unsuitable for incidents that might occur in a confined room, like in a bank for example.
At the same time revolvers carried by armed detectives were replaced by Sig Sauer semi-automatic handguns that all detective units now carry holstered to their belt.
A spokesperson for the garda press office said that the Uzi was taken out of service “because it no longer fulfilled the requirements”.
The press office said the Sig Sauer handgun was “identified to best meet the policing needs” of An Garda Síochana and that specialist units such as the Emergency Response Unit and Regional Support Unit have the MP7 submachine gun at their disposal.
Sources said gardaí are not looking to have every person in the force armed with most “happy to do their duty” in the knowledge that they have armed backup if required. However in situations like armed escorts, many gardaí are worried about their lack of fire power.
Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe
A source who knew Garda Detective Adrian Donohoe said they were “bothered about the fact that he was not sufficiently armed” when he was shot dead by armed robbers at a credit union in Dundalk.
“Had this attack on Adrian occurred a year earlier, he would have had the Uzi locked and loaded and resting in his lap as was common practice when escorting cash-in-transit vehicles,” they said.
Previously an armed escort unit of two detectives would have a handgun each and a Uzi machine gun, which the passenger in the car would carry. Now gardaí are asking for these guns to be replaced as they worry about facing criminals with superior firearms.
While the handgun is semi-automatic and has a high rate of firepower, it has a shorter range than the Uzi and sources said the image of an armed garda standing with a larger submachine gun in his hand while performing security duty or at arms checkpoints can work as a “visual deterrent”.
Armed response units
As the garda press office pointed out, the emergency response and regional support units are armed with powerful MP7 submachines but it is understood that there are large area gaps and at times a lack of personnel which leaves gardaí feeling vulnerable.
In a recent attack on a garda in Tallaght, in which he sustained ‘serious facial injuries’, it took nearly half an hour for the armed response unit to arrive as the two responding gardaí waited in the bathroom of the house where they had barricaded themselves.
One garda told TheJournal.ie that colleagues feel they do not have enough armed support “to protect the community and indeed ourselves”.
“I was never an advocate of arming the guards and I’m still proud of the tradition of not having an armed police force but it’s getting ridiculous now,” they said.
The feeling among most members is that we are sitting ducks, and more attacks of this nature are bound to happen. I’m not suggesting that every guard should be armed, but it could be more appropriate to have one uniformed armed response unit for each district. This member would perform all the duties a regular uniformed officer, with the added responsibility for dealing with particularly violent or armed suspects.
When contacted by TheJournal.ie, President of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) John Parker said the failure of the garda authorities to replace the Uzi submachine “has been a serious concern”.
In the same review of firearms last year, a decision was made to cut back on training for firearms cards, which all gardaí carrying a gun must have. Garda authorities decided to downscale the number of cardholders particularly in rural areas and for detectives working mainly on white collar crime.
Parker said this “is another worry and it has left members without adequate resources,” he said. “Members are being exposed to unnecessary risk.”
In a statement the Department of Justice said that Minster Shatter has no direct function in this matter and that the decision to withdraw the Uzi last year was that of the Garda Commisioner.
In that context the Commissioner determines the appropriate measures to be put in place, including the specific firearms to be deployed, without reference to either the Minister or his Department.
The department said that garda authorities “have indicated that at present the armed capability of garda members is provided by district detective units supported by other units”.
“In addition, they have made arrangements to co-ordinate armed response measures throughout the country, it added. “In view of the operational nature of the functions involved, it would not be appropriate to comment on how the relevant resources might be deployed.”
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What’s the point? All the spots I see have non-electric cars parked in the space!
Well somebody might as well use the spaces while we’re waiting for somebody to buy an electric car.
New legislation is coming through at the moment to make it an offence to park at these EV spaces. The biggest problem we have, as EV drivers is finding the spaces ICE’d (Infernal Combustion Engine). There are several hundred EV cars on our roads …and growing.
At the time of your post, that legislation was already on the statue book and had been for over 2 months. It was signed off in May 2014.
It still has done nothing to stop people from ICEing though.
I was looking at one of these in the local Mitsubishi dealership last week.
http://www.mitsubishi-motors.ie/contentv3/index.cfm?fuseaction=page&pageID=28159
When I say “I was looking” I mean, I was there, it was there, I walked around it and looked at it.
Ron, you any relation to Peter Jeremy?
He’s my half brother.
Also, Tesla are coming here next year with their Supercharger ( free charging ) network and cars.
Until they come up with a quicker delivery system, this is all pointless and a waste of money. The battery swap system can replace the battery in less time then I would take to fill your car with fuel
Can someone explain the point of electric cars to me? In normal cars we burn fossil fuels in the car itself, so presumably get great efficiency out of it. Most of our electricity is from burning fossil fuels, so basically an electric car runs on the same thing as normal cars, but with much lower efficiency as it has had to travel a distance to get to the power point. There a part of this I’m missing?!
That would be a economical matter
Maybe there’s an economy of scale (carbon wise) that comes with using electricity from a power station, or maybe not, just throwing it out there.
Throw it back in quick
the emissions get spewed out in the countyrside wherhe power plant usually is, rather hten in the city centre where people are :/
@silent. Exactly. And the amount of energy wasted in making the batteries for these yokes,brutal. It’s not the way forward.
The only way forward is putting your foot on the peddle
Your on fire tonight lad.
Ron according to the mayo energy agency the lowest CO2 per km is 116 for a diesel. For the Nissan leaf the kWh per km is .150 If you assume either 469 or 481 grams of CO2 is produced for 1kWh of electricity. Then the grams of CO2 produced per km for the Nissan Leaf is 70.35 and 72.15 respectively.
Wind turbines and hydroelectric power feed into the grid too. So that’s where the difference should be. But, the percentage is still very small so you’re right about the higher efficiency with normal vehicles. Maybe in the future it will be better.
The combustion engine is very inefficient, where as modern CCGT power stations are fairly efficient, around 60%, but obviously you can’t pick out the gas electricity from the coal electricity from the grid for your car or house so it’s very difficult to have definite overall figure for efficiency for the whole grid but having said that I’d still bank that it’s vastly more efficient than the combustion engine.
Dunner….”economical matter” haha….please take a bow and bask in my admiration…..
A night when you can set your car to charge the majority of the online plant can be wind on regular occasions. There is little demand at night and the wind keeps turning.
Thats what she said…
An Electric motor is upwards of 90% efficient. Even when you are generating electricity from the dirtiest coal-fired power plant, it is still more efficient (from Well to Wheel) than any combustion engine.
You actually only get about 20-30% of the total energy out of petrol when you burn it in an engine.
Check out this video for an explanation; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4
Silent Majority you are correct in your analysis.
Electric Cars are a complete technological dead end. Just like Beta Max tapes, Windows Vista etc.. sounds great in concept, performs poorly in reality.
Nobody in their right mind would buy what is essentially a glorified golf buggy that has little or no range & that you have to spend endless time, frequently stopping to charge up & twiddling your thumbs waiting around.
The future is cars powered by Hydrogen fuel cells ! The engines contain few moving parts so are powerful & easily maintained, they are refueled just like an ordinary car, the range is the same or better than an ordinary car and the only waste product created is water.
Toyota are going down this route, here’s a link. http://www.toyota-global.com/…/fuelcell_vehic…;
And the hydrogen fuel cell powers an electric motor to propel the car.
The range extending models would be worth a punt, stuff like the Nissan leaf are good as a second car.
I have a car which is powered by my own self esteem..
Yeah but the range is crap id say!
I bow before you sir..
Hahaha
I have one of these. Brought it from the UK and mostly charge it at home. Simples
70 miles for €2. But this country – as usual – will be slow to follow.
In every European capital. With power sockets everywhere.. ..
Glen would you not use the charging points on the road/car parks as they are free to use (for the moment at least)
Theres always some langer parked in them…
We are putting one into a new housing development in Dublin. Was a condition of planning. We are catching up
Just make sure you have a parking for charging only sign in front of it so it can actually be used!
When these electric cars are plentiful and people realize that’s its cheaper to drive an electric car than a petrol driven car. Where is the Government going to get the revenue from each liter of petrol it lost, to the electric car?
They’ll probably put a levy on it! Usual gubernant way of creaming money off us.
The government is in the unique position of being able to change or create new taxes or levies at a whim so I’d not worry about them loosing out on duty and vat on fossil fuels
Correct john !! Why can’t they put an altinator to constantly charge the battery is beyond me !! The power stations be pumping out more rubbish to what normal cars do .. It’s just a load of nonsense !! Co2 my arse they only care about revenue
Wow John you’re right if only the scientists who created the batteries for these things had considered placing the alternator IN the car we wouldn’t be in the situation at all!
@James I mean not John, you and me are cool John.
So James, you’re basically saying electric cars should be perpetual motion machines. That’s your idea.
Electric cars are far more efficient than petrol cars even if you are burning oil to create the electricity!
“So James, you’re basically saying electric cars should be perpetual motion machines”
I read his post about four times, in disbelief, thank you confirming that that was what he was actually suggesting.
I have a plug point ever few feet in my house ! Keep up with the times guys
..and you drive around your house I assume….handy so.
That’s where the term driving up the wall comes from silly
And don’t worry if you still have a petrol or diesel car
you can find a station that dispenses both in most towns or villages
and it only takes a couple of minutes
If you want to wait 25 minutes, please buy other things
as the station owners may call the Garda
if you just stand looking in the window
Just don’t complain about petrol prices. The average 2 car family could save huge amounts of money with something like a Leaf. It’s a bit more expensive than a normal car but you could easily save 2-8 grand a year depending on usage.
Haha , I’m looking forward to when it’s more the accepted / convenient norm instead of petrol / diesel but I suspect I’ll be waiting a while , on a simple note , can some tech Bofin explain to my simple brain why they all promote ( like in Mitsubishi ad ) the fact that you can charge up 80% in 30 mins but it’s 4.5 hours to fully charge , I’m not great at maths I know , but I can’t figure why the last 20% takes 4 hours to charge when the first 80% takes half an hour , I’m not saying it’s not true but its seems illogical
The 80% in 30 mins is on a 50kw DC Fast charger, which you generally find in motorway service stations. The last 20% does take longer, but not 4 hours, on the Fast chargers, they slow down after 80% to prevent battery damage, the last 20% takes about another 30 mins on these.
The 4.5 hours is for a full charge at home or one of the slower on-street charge points.
So will you have to buy a plug adaptor if you take your electric car to France?
I see there’s one on Church Avenue in Rathmines. Though is there much use having it in the pay and display parking bay. On a busy day anyone can park in front of it and block it off. The space should be marked off surely as no parking except for cars recharging.
Whwn you consider how much we can save giving the crazies in Arabia and keeping ot cicrulatin in our own economy we should be making here the 1st Elec. 1st state.
It’s the M6 at Ballinasloe, there is no M5 in Ireland. It is only in Northern Ireland and England
I’m going to travel around the country with my flat screen and a deck chair and tell them they are going to have to wait till I’m finished watching Home and Away……………..
You can now find !!!
If you have to go too cork it will take about half a day!!!
What if you are in Middleton? It might take 15 minutes.
And only an hour from Navan :)
Shur when the self drive cars come in you can send the car of to cork on it’s own to get charged when your not using it. At nighttime like when you’re in bed. It can drive back in time for ya before morning.
Tramore has two. One in the tesco carpark.
The other is on the main road opposite the majestic hotel.
I have never yet seen a car being charged.
There is only really the Nissan leaf and the BMW i8 and i3 that are the only real electric cars on sale in Ireland today.
Electric cars. Silly. Buy a trustworthy diesel yoke. You won’t need to stop every 40 miles to top up. Upgrade the electric cars to better machines and my they might take off.
With a good diesel car, you only have to recharge with diesel every 900km or so
Your comment is very misleading. The Tesla Model S has a range of 300 miles. They are in Ireland now.
Nice to see an initiative such as this moving forward. Fossil fuels are just gonna get more expensive.
A hybrid. Best of both worlds. And you don’t have to worry about finding a power point – or finding some eejit parked in front of it!
Wouldn’t we want to completely phase out the reliance on petrol and diesel, seeing as it’s becoming so expensive due to decreasing supply?
For such a small country electric makes total sense.
Big Beemers and Mercs don’t make much sense either.
Yeah and you’ll find a petrol car parked across it!
How long would it take to fully recharge the car at a charge point?
It takes about 25 mins to get an 80% charge in a Nissan Leaf using one of the public fast charge points.
And they’re likely to be working on improving that as well
That’s quick. Takes more time to get my phone battery up to 80% power!
Every 60km is good, but that’s still an awfully long extension cord you’d need.
I have an electric car, a Nissan Leaf, and I love it. The money we are saving in diesel each month covers the repayments on the car, and more. For us it’s a no brainer. We also have a 2.5 litre BMW, before you get on my case for just being a tree hugger. Speaking of which, our electricity comes from Airtricity, so the Leaf is literally being powered by the wind. Here’s a little video as to why the Leaf rocks.
Good review Ian ,nice to see something positive wrote about EV.s I would love an electric car but have a renault grand scenic 10 reg that only costs 25euro a week in diesal so can’t justify it yet maybe when kids get older.
I own a leaf and my daily commute is 130km, I’ll stop for 10mins on the way home for a quick charge and then I’m on my way again. I charge over night when I’m asleep ( journal readers do sleep don’t they?!?!) Over the last 6 months I have saved €2500 so effectively the car is paying for its self. I’m no tree hugger and the main reason I purchased it was to save money!
What a joke…
Does Mary Kavanagh work for the ESB ?
I’ve yet to see a charge point which doesn’t have a regular car parked in front of it. What happens then when I can’t charge!!
Yes ,maybe
In Dunmore east we have no petrol station but have an electric plug in point for electric cars I’ve yet to see it used……
Is there anyway of finding out how many times each have been used. Seemed a massive waste of money at the time, if the investment had been made in efficiently producing hydrogen fuel cells Ireland could lead the way in a technology which seems more practical. Electric cars are not feasible as an alternative to petrol and diesel. Consider all of the reps on the road driving 1500km a week, electric doesn’t make sense, hydrogen fuel cells for cars and lpg for lorries would be better . It would also mean that the government wouldn’t have had to put the infrastructure in place for a dead technology, instead private petrol and diesel companies would have added them in to their forecourts.
Electric may have more of a future for city cars where they can be charged overnight at home. Sadly, after a few years of charging, the batteries are far less efficient and need to be replaced. That would put me off spending the 35,000 on a Nissan Leaf. That and the fact I”ll never have that money to spend on a car. Hard to buy one second hand knowing it will need a new battery pack too. I wish we had people in Ireland at the cutting edge of researching Hydrogen energy as a fuel. We could take the lead of our own destiny, rather than waiting for a foreign company to bring the technology to us. Maybe there are people here working on this that I am unaware of.
So new legislation is coming to make it an offence to park in charging bays? Great stuff, they should also think about making it an offence to park in bus stops, disabled bays, footpaths etc. Oh wait!
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