An Garda Síochána has hired a UK company to provide counter-terrorism training simulators as part of preparations for the EU presidency.
It is one of a number of security measures being taken by the force to prepare for Ireland taking over the presidency in July 2026. Other measures include the acquisition of anti-drone technology, armoured vehicles and a new surveillance aircraft.
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly has said the presidency will be the biggest security operation in the history of the force.
As part of preparations, garda units will “war game” various emergency scenarios including large-scale terrorist attacks. To facilitate this, the force is significantly expanding its training equipment to test the decision-making of its senior officers.
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Three “simulation units” are being purchased at a total cost of over €500,000. These will use pre-designed programmes to simulate control rooms during an attack and assess how Garda managers respond.
One unit will be based in the Garda College in Templemore where it will replace an obsolete model. This will serve as a “control room” where simulations will be devised and edited.
These simulations will then be run in one of two mobile simulation units which are being acquired. These units will be based in hotels or conference centres around the country, with information feeding back to the Garda College unit during simulation exercises.
The three units will be fitted with televisions, computers and tablets which will feed information to participants and record their decisions.
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It is understood at least some of these exercises will take place alongside training exercises involving the Emergency Response Unit and other specialised units. These may include simulated hostage and barricade situations, major casualty and mass shooter events and hijackings.
The simulations will “have the capability of producing scenarios from major emergency, and terrorist incidents to be used in training and administration exercises in order to best facilitate ‘blue light’ training,” tendering documents stated.
It will also be able to recreate day-to-day policing scenarios such as murder and missing persons investigations.
As well as devising their own emergency scenarios, gardaí will be able to access simulations created by other police forces using the technology. Gardaí will also be able to recreate real-world scenarios such as the July 2005 London bombings and the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.
A London based company, Critical Simulations, has been contracted to supply the technology and train gardaí in its use. This is the commercial arm of the Hydra Foundation, a group which provides training technology to dozens of police forces around the world.
The foundation provides simulators for free to UK police forces and emergency services but charges for its products in other countries. Hydra has previously provided simulation technology to the Garda college for training new recruits.
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