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Gaping skills shortfall emerged after five teenagers in a BMW were killed in a wrong-way crash on the M9 in Co Kildare in August
An Garda Síochána has made contact with a number of UK police forces as part of efforts to “significantly” ramp up the number of its members able to conduct high-speed pursuit training, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Garda members recently began specialist pursuit training with Devon and Cornwall Police – which has a centre of excellence – and will begin training their colleagues in high-speed and dangerous pursuits by the end of the year. The move is designed to ensure frontline members driving patrol cars have the expertise to engage in the most complex and high-risk vehicle pursuits and, as a result, they will be sanctioned to undertake those operations.
The Garda has now turned to a number of other British police forces to plug what has become a gaping skills shortfall after five teenagers in a BMW were killed in a wrong-way crash on the M9 in Co Kildare in August as they tried to evade gardaí. Chief Supt Brian Sugrue, director of training and development at the Garda College, was before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport on Wednesday.
He said there are about 4,500 Garda members trained to respond to calls “using their lights and sirens”.
“By the end of this year we would hope to have in place instructors that are trained then to train our members in pursuit training,” he said. “That’s going to provide that additional training where people are better placed to make better decisions in relation to pursuits to try and prevent them.
” He said it was “difficult to give an exact number” of how many instructors would be fully trained by the end of this year because it is “dependent on interactions and agreements with another UK police force”. He said the Devon and Cornwall police force have committed to training a cohort by the end of the year.
“We’re hoping that interaction with the other UK police forces will significantly increase that number,” Sugrue added. Sugrue said it takes three instructors to train six people in a five-day course. He is hopeful one pilot course will be run before the end of the year, training about six people, with a “larger roll-out” in 2027.
He said there are two elements of pursuit training, with the initial phase focusing on “decision making, communication, feeder vehicles, co-ordinating the stinger, and pre-emptive tactics to try and prevent the pursuit and to stop it as soon as possible”. He said a “significantly smaller number” will be further trained in tactical pursuit and containment. He also confirmed pursuit training will cover pursuing those on e-scooters and scrambler bikes.
Assistant Commissioner Denis Ferry, of the roads policing and community engagement unit, called for greater protection for Garda members involved in pursuits, some of whom have found themselves “subject to prosecution”. He also said offences and penalties could be “strengthened” as they are “probably the biggest deterrent”. Gardaí have looked at the implementation of spikes at on/off ramps on motorways but Ferry said these could impede access for Garda members to motorways and could impact first responders.
He also said improved signage would help with wrong-way motorway driving as “quite often when people go the wrong way on roads – particularly motorways – it’s often a mistake”.
“Anything that can be done to review the existing road network to see can improvements be made from a road design perspective or signage is obviously going to make it easier for us as well,” said Ferry. He said there are currently 660 Garda members assigned to dedicated roads policing units nationally, making it the single largest specialist policing unit within the force.
However, the figure is down about 40 per cent since 2009. Ferry said this was a result of a reduction in recruitment during the Covid pandemic as well as retirements.
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