Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 July 2018
1180. Deputy Martin Kenny asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of gardaí by rank attached to the public order unit in the Sligo-Leitrim division in each of the years 2009 to 2017 and to date in 2018, in tabular form. [34979/18]
View answerAs the Deputy will appreciate, the Garda Commissioner is responsible for the distribution of personnel and I, as Minister, have no direct role in the matter. Garda management keeps this distribution under review in the context of crime trends and policing priorities to ensure optimum use is made of the resources.
I am informed by the Commissioner that there are Gardaí with specialist training in public order policing in each Division who are available to be called upon when required to police events with an increased risk of a public order incident occurring, such as, protests or large scale public events. The number of Gardaí called upon is dependent on the nature of the event. As such, there are no Gardaí assigned to public order units on a full-time basis.
