New armed support unit for border region begins operations

Unit to be based in Cavan and will complement two others in Dundalk and Donegal

The Garda Press Office said the unit will provide ‘support to local policing and local Garda members’. File photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times
The Garda Press Office said the unit will provide ‘support to local policing and local Garda members’. File photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill/The Irish Times

A new armed support unit to police the border region is to begin operations in Cavan-Monaghan on Monday.

The new unit is to be based in Cavan and will complement two other border-based armed units in Dundalk and Donegal.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris confirmed last week the unit will initially be staffed by gardaí transferred from other areas.

"We have accelerated plans for an armed support unit in Cavan and from Monday an armed support unit will be based in Cavan," Mr Harris told the Policing Authority last Thursday.

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“It will be initially staffed by individuals on temporary transfer but we have supplemented the overall armed support complement so there is sufficient strength to do that and then in the next few months we will create a actual full-time permanent ASU presence in Cavan.”

The Garda Press Office said the unit will provide “support to local policing and local Garda members”.

Gardaí and the Police Service of Northern Ireland are continuing to investigate the attack of businessman Kevin Lunney after he was abducted on a roadside in Cornafean, Co Cavan earlier this month.

Mr Lunney received knife wounds to his face and neck and one of his legs broken in two places in a sustained attack before being dumped more than two hours after his abduction in Cornafean, about a 40-minute drive from his home across the border in Co Fermanagh.

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns

Sarah Burns is a reporter for The Irish Times