Six homes raided over ramming
‘Both have reported unfit for duty’
GARDAÍ have raided six west Dublin homes in connection with the ramming of a patrol car earlier this week.
The incident in the Cherry Orchard suburb in west Dublin took place at around 7.30pm on Monday and a clip of it has been widely shared on social media.
Gardaí had been responding to reports of dangerous driving when the incident happened.
Two vehicles were spotted driving erratically and the Garda vehicle was deliberately rammed several times, gardaí said.
During the searches yesterday morning, several items including electronic devices were seized, a spokesman said. No arrests were made. ‘Both Garda members did not report injuries at the time, but have subsequently reported unfit for duty,’ said the spokesman.
The Irish Daily Mail reported this week that the two gardaí were ‘not adequately trained’ to deal with the situation’, according to the Garda Representative Association (GRA).
The two female officers were not allowed to pursue the drivers involved, break the speed limit, or even turn on their sirens.
It’s understood they had completed a one-day Competency Based Driver (CBD) Level 1 assessment, which authorises them to drive patrol cars but not in emergency situations.
As the other vehicles made a 180-degree turn at the roundabout, the Garda car can be seen following them at a regular speed before stopping.
One of the cars then rams the patrol vehicle before backing up and doing it again.
Shouts of laughter and applause can be heard from the spectators as the gardaí leave the scene in the damaged car.
The two gardaí escaped uninjured but are said to be ‘very shaken’ and ‘traumatised’.
GRA president Brendan O’Connor told the Mail that it’s ‘shocking’ that gardaí are expected to attend dangerous situations with minimum powers of authority.
The incident has been widely condemned, with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Justice Helen McEntee pledging more Garda resources.
Speaking in New York yesterday, Mr Martin backed Ms McEntee following Wednesday’s meeting of Dublin Fianna Fáil parliamentary party members over crime, saying she is ‘doing everything that the minister can do in relation to this’.
He added: ‘More generally, what we have to do is provide more structured supports to certain areas and certain communities… We need to empower those communities. We need to go back to the drug task force we had in previous generations.
‘That’s looking at allocating resources to education, to community intervention programmes, to addiction services. All of that has to happen as well as additional resources to the gardaí and the criminal justice system.’