Former Donegal sergeant calls to arm frontline gardaí with tasers

A former sergeant and local Peace Commissioner has made calls to ‘properly equip’ frontline gardaí with the introduction of taser guns.

Letterkenny-based Christy Galligan believes that all members should be equipped with the non-lethal weapon, arguing that, based on the figures, frontline gardaí need protection.

“I know what it’s like to be assaulted,” he told DonegalLive.” I’ve been assaulted many times and all I had in the good old days was an old wooden baton to protect myself,” he said.

“There was a lot of resistance when the extendable baton, pepper spray and even the stab vest came in. Now there’s a little bit of resistance again.

“This is the reality for frontline gardaí, and we need in a growing, angry and extremist-driven society to afford those gardai who work on their own, or in twos, the proper protections that others would deny them.”

Galligan highlighted the recent public order incidents in Letterkenny town and the lack of garda presence.

“Looking at recorded images of a man wielding a large knife in the market square, or the attack on a driver and passenger outside a newsagent’s on Lower Main Street by a gang of thugs, shows that the model of policing that has been introduced does not work,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have frontline gardaí on the beat on the street every day; that is the biggest problem.

“As of this July, 150 gardaí have been assaulted, 3,440 in the past 12 years, with the highest number of assaults occurring in 2022, 2023 and 2024, 316, 470 and 373, respectively, and those are the ones that are officially reported.”

This comes as the new Garda Commissioner, Justin Kelly, is considering whether frontline gardaí should carry tasers, as it is“really important that they have everything they need to protect themselves.” Special units, such as the armed response unit, already do so.

A taser gun is a conducted energy weapon that uses electrical current to temporarily incapacitate a person by causing involuntary muscle contractions, pain, and disorientation

“Proper training, safeguards and policies will ensure that, only as a last resort, where there is an immediate threat to life, tasers would be used, but used only where all other means of de-escalation are exhausted, Galligan added.

“If we want to be part of a modern police service, then we need to properly equip those on the frontline who are the thin blue line between anarchy and our well-fought-for democratic values and norms.

“I was amazed at his opposition to frontline Gardai having Tasers as part of their equipment to protect themselves and the general public. As someone who has spent all of my career in frontline policing, the arguments by some that An Garda Síochána is a community-oriented police service as opposed to a police service no longer hold water.

“The fact is that since the introduction of the Commission on the future of policing, and the introduction of the new policing model, the policing service that I knew, which was very much a part of the community, has been kicked to the sidelines and replaced with a model that is alien to all of us.”

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