It may be almost 50km from Dublin’s south inner city to Delgany, Co Wicklow, but the Garda Armed Support Unit’s (ASU) Audi Q7 Quattro makes light work of the journey.
The vehicle can travel at speeds of up to 250km/h and the vehicle’s blue lights and sirens ensure a path is cleared through the traffic.
A report has come in over the radio of a powerful machine-gun-type firearm being transferred from one vehicle to another. Local gardaí have traced the owner of one of the cars to an address in Delgany. The ASU is alerted.
Gardaí are keeping eyes on the house but, because of fears the occupant has a powerful firearm, it’s a job for the armed members of the ASU.
RM Block
Two members arrive at the address and immediately get to work. They are each armed with a Heckler & Koch MP7 submachine gun – also used by the State’s Army Ranger Wing and the British army’s SAS – and a Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. They also carry a range of less than lethal options, from a Taser stun gun to rounds loaded with pepper spray and rubber-bullet-type rounds.
On Wednesday night in Delgany there is no need for the ASU’s capacity for force, either lethal or less than lethal.
The eastern European man who answers the door to the ASU is initially surprised to see them, but then tells them: “I think I know what this is about.”
He takes them to the gun, stored neatly in a case, and explains it’s not a real firearm. The two ASU members, both of sergeant rank, are inclined to agree after examining the item. However, they take his details and take away the “gun” for ballistic testing.
On the same night, the Dublin ASU responds to an alert about young men spotted with knives around O’Connell Bridge in the city centre. “There’s sometimes organised fights between these groups – it may have been that,” says one of the ASU members. By the time the unit arrives at the scene, the youths have dispersed.
The unit also has intelligence of a drug-related abduction in Finglas, north Dublin, apparently over an unpaid drug debt. The intelligence is not concrete, but the ASU is on red alert to watch the situation and to be ready to respond if local gardaí need assistance in a hurry.
The Irish Times joins the Dublin ASU on patrol for two nights, the first media outlet ever to accompany the Garda’s team of armed officers. Based in the old Kevin Street Garda station near the city centre, the Dublin ASU shares offices with the Garda Emergency Response Unit and a National Negotiations Unit. The gleaming new modern Kevin Street Garda station is next door, dwarfing their building. Most members seem to like being just outside conventional day-to-day policing. They operate as a tightly bonded unit given the nature of their work.
Accompanied by The Irish Times, the Dublin ASU members cross the city repeatedly over the course of their shifts, driving into industrial estates, housing schemes and halting sites. Two major transport hubs, Dublin Port and Dublin Airport, also fall under the Dublin ASU’s remit.
Among the call-outs received over the two nights spent on patrol with the ASU is one relating to an incident about a man armed with a knife who is acting aggressively at a Dublin supermarket. In a separate call, another man, who locals suspect may be armed, is reportedly behaving threateningly on a village street in west Dublin.
The Dublin ASU has been patrolling the streets of the capital for almost a decade. It commenced operations in 2016, just after the outbreak of the Kinahan-Hutch feud.
“We were fast-tracked as a result of the feud,” says one of the Dublin ASU members who is now approaching a decade in the unit. “That first year, there was an awful lot of firearms incidents we were attending. We were in close proximity to a lot of stuff that happened.
“Now it’s more so possession of knives than so-called gangland hits. There still are those [gun-related] incidents, but not to the same extent.”
ASUs deploy from 12 centres across the four Garda regions: Dublin Metropolitan Region, Eastern Region, Southern Region and Northwestern Region. There are up to 300 members throughout the State at any one time. The Dublin ASU is comprised of four 15-strong teams who work over 12-hour shifts, 365 days of the year. There is just one woman member of the Dublin ASU.
In 2023, the ASUs across the State were called to 2,056 incidents, with the Dublin ASU the busiest. It was called to 446 spontaneous armed emergencies – those reported via calls to 999 – as well as nine hostage or “barricade” incidents and 112 pre-planned deployments.
It is called in to any incident involving the presence – suspected or confirmed – of a bladed weapon or firearm, meaning its members are present at every high-profile, critical incident in Dublin.
ASU members were, for example, first at the scene when a teenager was stabbed up to 20 times outside a pub on Eden Quay in Dublin’s north inner city one weekend night last month.
Last Monday they were also on scene when the remains of the O’Connors – Mark (54) and Louise (56) and their son Evan (27) – were found at the family home in Drumgowna, Co Louth.
In February 2022, nine addresses were raided by gardaí targeting a drugs gang, with access to powerful firearms, led by volatile gangland criminal Glen Ward (31). He is known as Mr Flashy and led the so-called “Gucci Gang”. He has since been jailed for five-and-a-half years for possessing a military-grade firearm.
It was the ASU that broke down his door on the morning and provided local gardaí and other Garda units with the armed presence that ensured none of the targets took on the guards.
Some of the houses were designed to ensure tens of thousands of euros in cash, as well as drugs and guns, were secure.
The fortified doors, bulletproof glass and CCTV systems were also designed to keep out the Garda or, at least, give those inside more time to dispose of any evidence, often down a toilet, during a Garda raid.
ASU members use force, if required, in containing a situation or subduing a target, often in support of unarmed uniform gardaí and armed detectives. This can include shooting an individual – known as “lethal force” – which can prove fatal. Though Garda members rarely fatally shoot people during incidents, it is far from unheard of.
In December 2020, George Nkencho (27) was fatally shot by an ASU member in the front garden of his family’s home in Clonee, Dublin 15, after a dispute during which he was armed with a kitchen knife. Tasers and pepper spray were used in an initial, unsuccessful bid to subdue him.
His death was investigated by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission - now known as Fiosrú, the Office of the Police Ombudsman - which concluded that there was no case for the Garda members to answer. Last year, after a Gsoc investigation into the incident, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided it would not seek a prosecution. More detail about what occurred on the day will emerge during an inquest planned for next January.
“Lethal is the last ... last, last, last resort,” one of the Dublin ASU members says. “But, saying that, we know if it’s required, well then that’s our job.
“It has to be risk assessed and it can be dynamic. Things change so quickly ... it could go from zero to 100 in an instant. And back again, maybe.”
Members of the team do not want to be named. As a group they are vehemently against it. Some are very surprised the media had been granted permission to patrol with them.
“I don’t even want my son going into school saying: ‘My dad is a guard’,” says one.
Another says he would never tell people about his role in the ASU.
“I’m just ‘a guard based in town’; that’s all I say. We are at all the critical incidents – you don’t want to advertise that. You also don’t want people constantly asking you: ‘What happened there’?” he says.
Others speak of high-profile incidents in the past, including gangland criminals being injured or even fatally shot by gardaí.
Everybody has moments where they’re saying to themselves: ‘Right, what way is this going to go?’ But you can’t let that paralyse you
— ASU member
“The members involved would be under fierce pressure trying to make sure their name didn’t come out publicly,” says one ASU member.
That concern is heightened now, perhaps more so than ever, because of social media and the ease with which a garda’s name can be spread – accurately or not – in connection with a contentious incident.
For the firearms part of their training they are tested “in terms of shooting at a target but also in terms of ‘can you handle this’.”
“But at the end of the day, on a job, it’s down to you ... nobody can tell you in that moment to pull the trigger or not pull it,” says one.
There is a big emphasis on learning how to de-escalate incidents by engaging with people. Drawing a weapon is “far from a first option”, says one member.
But what about the fear of never being certain what’s behind a door?
“Fear is good, maybe. It’s going to keep you alive,” says one member.
“Everybody has moments where they’re saying to themselves: ‘Right, what way is this going to go?’ But you can’t let that paralyse you. It’s only afterwards that you think to yourself: ‘Oh, that could have gone wrong’.”
Positions on ASUs across the State are highly coveted roles, with hundreds applying every time, even when a small number of posts become vacant. At least five years’ service in the Garda is required before candidates can even apply.
A fitness test is followed by interviews, where the main criterion appears to be whether the applicant is suitable for a team. If the first two stages are passed, candidates undergo basic medical checks. And even when those first three stages are complete, many candidates don’t make the cut. Then the most challenging part of the recruitment process begins.
A two-day evaluation, by the Garda Training Unit, tests physical abilities, decision making, team work and firearms handling, though not with live ammunition.
For those who make it through – and many don’t – a 13-week predeployment takes place, including long stints of firearms training with live ammunition. There is also emergency-responder first-aid training, advanced driving skills and tactical training, including entering buildings with force and clearing them.
“Some people try this and they’ll end up saying: ‘No, this is not for me’,” says one member. “And slowly but surely lads are culled and weeded away.”
Another member recalls his own training, saying the “psychological aspect is the hardest” as instructors pushed them to their limits, akin to elite military training, trying to crack them mentally.
The Dublin ASU does not have a high turnover of members. Once members have secured their places they become part of a very tight-knit team.
“We work together, socialise together, work out together,” says one member.
Members of the team say their families react differently to their roles.
“My wife never asks me anything about the job, and I mean nothing, ever,” he says, though he adds she was supportive of him joining the unit.
Another says his wife was also a garda, which was beneficial, especially after stressful incidents when “I can talk to her” without causing undue concern.
Another explains that he limits what he tells his family as it is important to “balance” the level of worry at home.
One of his colleagues says he is mindful that his decision to join was perhaps “a selfish thing”.
“Getting into this unit was something I always wanted – and this is my career,” he says. “But my partner has always been very supportive; she knows this is what I wanted.”
An increased number of knife-related incidents is not the only trend ASU members have been seeing in recent years. They have been dealing with what they see as a larger number of cases arising from acute mental illness.
The ASU teams also have a good sense of trouble spots around the capital, given their work and where they patrol. They say feuds involving shots being fired between rival groups, with some recent non-fatal woundings, are regularly bubbling away in Ronanstown and Blanchardstown, west Dublin, in Tallaght, southwest Dublin, and in Finglas in north Dublin.
On its patrol, the ASU team travels into these areas, passing the homes of well-known gang leaders, young and old.
Passing one house in west Dublin, a young man suspected of a recent gangland shooting can be seen peeping out a window. He thinks he hasn’t been spotted as he watches the ASU members watching him. But they have seen him. They note his presence, discuss him for a short while, and then move on, to a halting site in Finglas.
And on it goes for the armed unit over the course of the shift, patrolling the city and its suburbs into the night and working off the latest intelligence on flashpoint areas across Dublin.
“It’s the hot zone,” says one ASU member of his workplace as he rearranges his submachine gun and pistol, listening to the crackle of the Garda radio, ready to respond.
