Overview
- A total of 128 specially trained uniform gardaí at four stations in Dublin city centre and Waterford have been issued tasers under a time-limited pilot.
- Participants completed a three-day course grounded in Irish constitutional and European human rights principles and will wear body cameras in marked patrol cars.
- Each use of a taser must be recorded and notified to Fiosrú, with the pilot formally evaluated before any decision on wider deployment.
- This marks the first issuance of tasers to frontline officers, previously limited to Armed Support and Emergency Response units since 2007.
- The move follows rising assaults on gardaí, averaging about 299 per year since 2014 with a peak of 470 in 2023, while civil liberties groups question the evidence base and warn of risks in mental-health incidents.