{"id":597821,"date":"2026-08-19T06:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597821\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T06:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:42:12","slug":"promises-of-garda-pursuit-training-undercut-by-question-of-training-instructors-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/597821\/","title":{"rendered":"Promises of garda pursuit training undercut by question of training instructors first"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Niall O’Connor<\/p>\n

GARDA\u00cd WILL NOT be able to start new training in pursuit tactics by the end of the year despite what the Minister for Justice has said, because instructors have yet to be trained, sources have told The Journal.<\/p>\n

Jim O\u2019Callaghan said Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly confirmed to him that the pursuit training will begin for the first time this year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

It comes after the Garda Representative Association called for \u201cproper training\u201d<\/a> following the incident at the weekend. The Journal has written extensively on the topic and revealed earlier this year that no garda in the country was trained in the skill, which is a standard training tactic in other jurisdictions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Justin Kelly told an Oireachtas Committee that An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na was not in a position to provide such training as resources were tied up with policing the EU Presidency, which is being held in Ireland from July to December this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday morning Kevin Bolger of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors<\/a> (AGSI) criticised the lack of a rollout.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were given assurances, but here we are in the midst of another tragedy where the promises are still coming. We\u2019re not seeing any tangible actions,\u201d he told RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland.<\/p>\n

The Journal contacted multiple sources across the force who poured cold water on the idea of beginning training by the end of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A key issue is that the EU Presidency, which will begin again in earnest in September, is sucking resources away from frontline policing. There is also a Donald Trump visit in September.<\/p>\n

But the critical problem with all this, multiple sources have said, is that the instructors in An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na who will train the drivers in the highly complex methods must be trained first. It is understood that may happen by the year\u2019s end, but that will mean only a handful of time to train operational garda\u00ed before January.<\/p>\n

\"garda-road-closure-near-clonakilty-west-cork-ireland\"
\n Garda car at the scene of an incident in West Cork. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Tactics<\/p>\n

While the pursuit policy was being prepared by An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na, officers engaged with foreign forces to determine how to handle pursuits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is understood that garda\u00ed went abroad to examine this and discussed with those forces how best to deal with the problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There has been particular contact, it is believed, between the PSNI and British police forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They have discussed with garda\u00ed about methods such as TPAC or Tactical Pursuit and Containment. This is a very complex and detailed set of measures used by British police to bring a pursuit safely to an end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sources have said that the most complex move is to box in fleeing cars and bring them to a stop. This process involving up to eight cars uses a series of bumping manoeuvres at high speed and the box will slowly bring the pursuit to a stop by trapping and intimidating the motorist to a halt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the difficulties in using that in Ireland is that it can only be applied on roads like motorways and there would not be enough garda\u00ed routinely available to achieve it.<\/p>\n

Other tactics have been considered, such as a system which uses a small number of garda cars combining together to provoke a car into driving into a trap set by some of the police vehicles, which would work best on Irish back roads.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sources have asked us not to say the specific detail in this method, but it would require very organised communications between the units.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sources have said that hard stops, or garda\u00ed ramming stolen cars, will not be introduced into Ireland. This is for a number of reasons, the cost, the danger and also the fact that there is no appetite among authorities to introduce these tactics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The hard contact drills have been used in other jurisdictions such as the Met Police and in the US to bring pursuits to a stop, but it is high risk.<\/p>\n

Police forces in the US have taken it to the extreme with a method known as Precision Imobilisation Technique. This sees a patrol car touching the rear bumper in a manner than can spin a car.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Journal has learned that the Emergency Response Unit has used so-called hard stops while arresting people carrying guns, but this was a skill developed within that unit only. Members of the Armed Support Unit have received some training in how to use three cars to box in vehicles when they are dealing with a so-called \u201cnon-compliant motorist\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed have also got access to stinger devices which puncture tyres safely but yet they have not been trained to pursue. At best they can only follow a car.<\/p>\n

The sources have said that the priority to dealing with the stolen cars is to stop them before they get to the motorway off ramps and drive the wrong way. That will require urgent action, but the issue for garda\u00ed is that on average pursuits last just close to four minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"members-of-the-garda-armed-support-unit-outside-the-criminal-courts-of-justice-in-dublin-after-gardai-investigating-a-suspected-dissident-republican-bomb-intercepted-in-a-car-near-the-irish-border-hav\"
\n A member of the Armed Support Unit in Dublin with his vehicle. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n

Training<\/p>\n

Regardless garda\u00ed will have to be trained if the State is committed to giving them the capability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The training for garda\u00ed is under the guidance of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and its Emergency Services Driver Standards (ESDS) curriculum.<\/p>\n

The training of garda\u00ed is defined by Competency Based Driving (CBD) One, Two and Three.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CBD One is a short driving test, last about an hour, to permit them to drive patrol cars without lights and sirens, CDB Two allows them to respond to calls on lights and sirens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At present the CBD Two course is two weeks \u2013 sources have said that the pursuit training could be attached to that for an extra week\u2019s training. The problem arises that the CBD Two drivers will have to be trained for a week, but the CBD One drivers will have to go through the three-week course.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sources have said there is a high failure rate on the CBD Two course as it stands and the complexity of pursuit training is likely to increase that problem.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One senior source said there will have to be a choice made of garda\u00ed from particular locations and units to quicken the pace of the training roll out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In other words areas where stolen cars are most numerous and units like the Armed Support Unit, Emergency Response Unit and Roads Policing Units are likely to get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not feasible that all operational garda\u00ed will get this training, that is just not achievable. It doesn\u2019t take anyone with half a brain to realise this,\u201d said one frustrated senior source.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niall O’Connor GARDA\u00cd WILL NOT be able to start new training in pursuit tactics by the end of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":597822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[253308,253309,253310,61,60,43,11259,253311],"class_list":["post-597821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-chasing-the-training","tag-garda-chase","tag-garda-pursuits","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-the-morning-lead","tag-train-to-chase"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/597822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}