Special Detective Unit
Irish: Aonad Speisialta Bleachtaireachta | |
Agency overview | |
---|---|
Formed | 11 July 1921Criminal Investigation Department (CID) | as the
Preceding agency |
|
Jurisdiction | Ireland |
Headquarters | Harcourt Street, Dublin (D2) 53°20′03.5″N 6°15′50.3″W / 53.334306°N 6.263972°W |
Employees | Undisclosed ~ 300[1] |
Annual budget | Undisclosed (part of Garda Síochána budget, €1.34 billion in 2014) |
Minister responsible | |
Agency executives |
|
Parent agency | Crime & Security Branch Garda Síochána |
Website | Official website |
The Special Detective Unit (SDU) (
The Emergency Response Unit (ERU), a specialist armed tactical unit, was a division of the SDU until 2017 when the Special Tactics and Operational Command took over command of the unit.[3]
History
The Civic Guard was formed by the
Separate from the Gardaí, a Protection Officers Corps was set up to provide bodyguards for prominent treatyites during the
In 1926, after the DMP had been amalgamated with the Gardaí, this unit was renamed the Special Branch in imitation of English nomenclature.
Duties
The responsibilities of the Garda Síochána Special Detective Unit include;
- The investigation of threats to state security and the monitoring of persons and organisations who pose a threat on both national and international fronts
- Counter-terrorism operations (specifically targeting dissident republicans and Islamic extremists)
- Counter-intelligence
- Armed response to serious incidents
- Security for movement of weapons, ammunition, and large cash-in-transit shipments
- Operation of the Witness Security Programme
- Presidential, ministerial and diplomatic protection, physical security for visiting VIPs
SDU bodyguards accompany the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, on official visits in Ireland and internationally, and the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, is protected by a Close Protection detail from the SDU.[7] Full-time armed protection and transport is afforded to; the Tánaiste, Minister for Justice, Attorney General, Chief Justice, Director of Public Prosecutions and Garda Commissioner.[8] All government ministers and former Presidents and Taoisigh are provided with armed protection and transport when their security is deemed under threat, otherwise it is reserved for official state occasions.[9]
Ambassadors and high-ranking foreign diplomats in Ireland are given protection by the SDU when their safety or security is "at risk". High-risk foreign diplomatic premises are also protected by the unit, such as the embassies and diplomatic residences of the United States, United Kingdom and Israel in Dublin.[10]
Gardaí use five levels to grade the international terror threat level for Ireland; low, moderate, substantial, severe and critical. The gradings are based on a series of factors, including information supplied by international authorities. The current level is considered to be moderate, meaning an attack is "possible, but not likely".[11][12]
Organisational structure
The Special Detective Unit operates out of the Dublin Metropolitan Region (DMR) Headquarters of the Gardaí in Harcourt Street, Dublin, and has personnel in all six Garda regions (DMR, Eastern, Northern, Southern, South-Eastern and Western). The unit has a number of secret buildings which it uses for covert operations. The SDU has a strength of between 200 and 300
The SDU uses anti-terrorism legislation (chiefly the Offences against the State Acts) to conduct operations, and uses the non-jury Special Criminal Court to prosecute terrorism offenders. The SDU is a highly secretive organisation that does its utmost to stay out of the media spotlight, and when officers from the unit appear in court they routinely give evidence anonymously from behind a screen to protect their identity. All officers within the unit carry firearms, and train more often than regular police detectives. All officers are armed with concealed semi-automatic pistols, and if the situation requires, they have access to shotguns, submachine guns, assault rifles and sniper rifles. The SDU has a large pool of unmarked and armoured cars, and has access to helicopters if needed.
The budget for the SDU is classified, although it is drawn from the overall Garda budget (€1.34 billion in 2014). The only published figures are those for the budget to pay confidential informants, via the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (CHIS) system. The fund used to pay informers is known as the "Secret Service" budget, and it is shared between the Crime & Security Branch and Directorate of Military Intelligence. In 2014, it was €1 million.[14] Although the service's jurisdiction is the Republic of Ireland, officers from the unit have been active in Northern Ireland, a region which is officially part of the United Kingdom.[15]
In 2013, Ireland had the fourth highest number of arrests for terrorism-related offences in the entire European Union, with 41 individuals arrested, behind only France (225), Spain (90) and the United Kingdom (77), according to Europol.[16] The average prison sentence for a person convicted under terrorism legislation in Ireland was 12 years in 2013, the third highest in the EU, behind Greece (27 years) and Spain (14 years).[17]
Counter-Terrorism International
The Garda Counter-Terrorism International (CTI) unit was established in 2014 as a dedicated section of the SDU to identify and monitor Islamic terrorism threats and share intelligence with international security and law enforcement agencies on this issue. The Garda CTI has up to 50 full-time members who operate over 5 shifts. This section has its own surveillance teams and informants, and reports directly to the Garda Commissioner.[18] The Counter-Terrorism Domestic (CTD) section deals with homegrown terrorism.[1]
Hostage Negotiation Section
The Garda Hostage Negotiation Section (HNS), officially formed in 2007, is a subdivision of the Garda SDU. It is headed by an experienced
Witness Security Programme
The Garda Witness Protection Unit is a small, dedicated and highly secretive subsection of the SDU, which operates the state's Witness Security Programme, at the direction of the Attorney General of Ireland. The unit (established in 1997) is headed by a Detective Inspector, and further reinforcements can be drawn from the Special Branch when there is a need. The Garda ERU provide tactical assistance to the programme. The budget for the unit was €1.198 million in 2014. Witnesses in the programme are given a new identity, address and armed police protection either in Ireland or abroad. There has never been a reported breach of security in which a protectee was harmed.[20]
Operations
The Special Detective Unit works closely with other specialist and national units within the Garda Síochána, namely the
An MI5 unit based at the regional headquarters (Palace Barracks) in Holywood, County Down, in Northern Ireland works with both the PSNI and Gardaí to track the activities of domestic and foreign terrorist threats, and in 2008 this led to the discovery of a suspected al-Qaeda bomb making factory in County Kerry, where three people were arrested, some of whom had previously been under surveillance by the Special Detective Unit's Middle Eastern Bureau[21] and National Surveillance Unit.[22]
SDU officers have conducted operations alongside Irish Military Intelligence, the United States'
In 2010, the Special Detective Unit, Garda
The Special Detective Unit was the principal security agency involved in protecting Britain's
Following the outbreak of the
Electronic surveillance
It has been alleged that the Special Detective Unit has been involved in the
In the month of January 2012 alone, Gardaí applied for 1,829 "requests for disclosure" from telecommunications and internet companies based in Ireland. There were 1,296 subscriber requests, 494 call trace requests and 39 IP (computer address) requests. Taken as an average monthly total, theoretically Gardaí would be seeking details of over 20,000 phone and broadband subscribers per annum. These requests have been the subject of an investigation by the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.[36]
Killed in the line of duty
A number of officers in the Garda Special Detective Unit have lost their lives in the course of serving the state since the early 1920s. Seven Special Branch detectives are known to have been unlawfully killed in the line of duty since 1940.[37]
shaded rows denote when officers were killed in the same incident.
Rank | Name | Year of death | Circumstances |
---|---|---|---|
Detective Sergeant | Patrick McKeown | 1940 | Fatally wounded (shot) during raid on IRA safehouse, Dublin[38] |
Detective | Richard Hyland | 1940 | Fatally wounded (shot) during raid on IRA safehouse, Dublin[39] |
Detective Sergeant | Denis O'Brien | 1942 | Assassinated (shot) by IRA members in his car, County Dublin[40] |
Detective | George Mordaunt | 1942 | Murdered (shot) during raid on criminal gang, Dublin[41] |
Chief Superintendent | Seán Gantly | 1948 | Accidentally shot dead while pursuing an escaped prisoner, Dublin[42] |
Detective | Frank Hand | 1984 | Fatally wounded (shot) during IRA robbery of cash-in-transit van, County Meath[43] |
Detective | Jerry McCabe | 1996 | Fatally wounded (shot) during IRA robbery of cash-in-transit van, County Limerick[44] |
Weapons
- Pistols
- SIG Sauer P226 (9×19mm Parabellum semi-automatic pistol)
- Walther P99 (9×19mm Parabellum semi-automatic pistol)
- Submachine guns
- Heckler & Koch MP7 (HK 4.6×30mm submachine gun)
- Assault rifles
- Heckler & Koch HK416 (5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle)
- Heckler & Koch HK33 (5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle)
- Sniper rifles
- Steyr SSG 04 (7.62×51mm NATO bolt-action sniper rifle)
- Steyr SSG 69 (7.62×51mm NATO bolt-action sniper rifle)
- Shotguns
- Remington Model 870 (12 gauge pump-action shotgun)
- Benelli M4 Super 90 (12 gauge semi-automatic shotgun)
- Benelli M3 (Super 90) (12 gauge dual-mode shotgun)
- Less lethal
See also
- Garda National Surveillance Unit (NSU)
- Defence Forces Directorate of Military Intelligence
- National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
References
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- ^ "Garda Síochána Historical Society". PoliceHistory.com. Archived from the original on 23 September 2017. Retrieved 17 July 2017.
- ^ Eunan O'Halpin, Defending Ireland: The Irish State and its Enemies, The State and Civil War, p. 11 Archived 30 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine
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