Aid to civil power

[bigman]

Hello all.
I`m not that big into Irish DF but have some questions.
DF perform atcp duties such as cash escort, explosives escort,occasional escorts to special criminal court, occasional searches, garda backup in foot and mouth type scenarios and a small amount of prison security.
I hear DF are unhappy about this. As a cash escort takes approx. 12 men and explosives similar and the various other roles take up men this now seems to be the DFs most important role.
What would the DF rather do on day to day bases in Ireland?

Secondly is it neccessary to have gardai escorting the DF in cash and explosive escorts? With the shortage of gadrai I feel that this is just a waste.
The only reason for this that I can see is because of garda powers over other traffic and their use of emergency sirens. I feel that the garda have more important things to do than this.

[strummer]

The DF personnel are there to back up the Garda personnel, not the other way around. The Garda is the only one with the "power of arrest", "power of search", etc. On their own, the DF on the cash/explosive escort would not have a lot of statuatory power. Hence the need for the Gardai.

Later.

[bigman]

I believe that in Irish law any person can make an arrest once an arrestable offence has been committed, any offence that has a maximum sentence of five years or more is an arrestable offence.
DF would be entitled to make an arrest and hand suspects over to gardai, as for example store security guards in Ireland do daily.

[Goldie fish]

Its not as straightforward as that. The gardai protect cash in transit..powers of arrest do not come into it. The gardai also do cash escort without the assistance of the army(ie armed detectives) but in the History of the state,a cash escort involving army and Gardai has never been attacked or robbed. The same sadly is not true with armed garda escorts,so if it aint broke dont fix it!

Interesting First post by the way..I'll be keeping my eye on you..

[Ex-soldier]

It is a legal issue that under normal peacetime conditions the military are not permitted to conduct any official armed actions outside barracks without being under the direct supervision of the civilian authorities!! The military are only there at the request of the civil powers as a back-up. They are not allowed to take action on their own.

[bigman]

But is this not a total waste of garda manpowe. In the case of a robbery what are two unarmed uniformed gardai going to do?

Also my first point are these ATCP duties now the main use of the DF? If it wasn`t for these duties many people would never see a soldier in Ireland.

[andy]

bigman i think you have hit the nail on the head. ATCP is a total waste of resources. Needing both Gardai and Defence Force personnel is crazy.

The current situation stems from the foundation of the State where the police were the civil authority and the DF were there to provide assistance as required. Perhaps it was a good idea back then only to have the DF armed (for reasons of those years) however modern day Ireland is a world away.

Secuirty firms should transport the cash themselves (like in other EU countries) and employ whatever secuirties deemed necessary. Im sure this is being looked at by the relevent authorities and it will happen sooner or later(when terror organisations are no longer with us).

[hptmurphy]

Back in the good old days when bank robbers walked in to a bank and said stick em up this was fine.....Now a days they prefer to spray the area with lead and claim political motives after wards.Please read the post about Gerry McCabe and then tell me we don't need ATCP.

A lot of these terrorist scumbags are only saving up for round two.......the last thing we need is for the hard learned lessons of The seventies and the eighties to be forgotten and for the terrorists to have a free hand.

There is no leagal issue about members of the DF carrying there weapons while on lawful duty as they are controlled by a governing document called COD6.This document has been discussed in the past and basically is the outline for the use of degrees of force.

The ATCP role is a one that is quite nessacary and could not be replaced by civillian security companies as these are often infiltrated by subversives and and thus undermines the whole security issue.

I firmly believe that the moment The ATCP law is removed that attacks on the gardai and state institutions would increase.Please don't forget that Atcp does not only apply to CIT etc...it covers medi flights ....fishery protection and a myriad of other jobs.In this role it shows how professional our DF actually are that we can allow them armed on to our streets for thirty years and there hasn't been one fatal incident....now compare this to the amount of times the Gardai draw weapons and the amount of casualties caused.

Maybe we should look at the training and roles of our Gardai in relation to these roles and not the DF.

[strummer]

There was a pretty big thread a while back about arming private security firms and letting them protect their own assets instead of using tax-payer funded security. I don't see this as a bad idea.

While it is true that every citizen does have a common law power of arrest, this hardly applies on an ATCP duty. WHy bother having the Gardai there so?
In Ireland there is, for the most part an unarmed police force. To provide back-up firepower and personnel the DF are used. The DF peeps have no statuatory power in most cases. This is by design. Do we wish to see Martial Law? Hardly. It's just a system of checks and balances.

Later.

[bigman]

Would it not be a solution to have a part of the DF(or a state ran armed security co.) whose sole responsibility would be ATCP duties such as cash/explosive/prisonner escort, Portlaoise security ect.
This group should be equiped properly, nissan patrol SUVs with a 0-62 of 16.2 and a top speed of 99mph(basically a large family car) can hardly be seen as adequate.
The main tactic of cit is intimidating would be attackers.
Then for any major unforeseen problem bring in extra DF e.g Shannon security, foot and mouth checkpoints.


hptmurphy I believe that the DF have and still are infiltrated by subversives. Also the garda has been infiltrated by suversives. This is always going to be a security problem and is not just a problem faced by private security companies.

[strummer]

Why have the State run it Bigman? Why not let private concerns run it? Have you ever heard of the govt actually running an efficient operation? I say leave it up to private industry, although some legislation will have to be enacted to allow them to carry weapons.

[bigman]

I think that the state would be able to use garda and DF perssonnel and facilities for training. I think a private company would have problems starting their own training facilities, cost of land, instructors, insurance etc.
DF would be the best people to train any such group and they might have a problem with the government hiring them out to a private company.
This government has been talking about regulating the security industry for years and it is a very slow process. If we arm security companies the government will take forever to get it up and running.

[FMolloy]

There's plenty of private companies out there with the capital to set up such an outfit, money is no object if the will is there.

[bigman]

If these roles were taken away from the DF would the government feel that they were not getting "their moneys worth" from the DF? Would this lead to more cutbacks in the DF?

[Goldie fish]

Have you an interest in any other part of the Defence Forces apart from ATCP?