| Irish:Aonad Speisialta Bleachtaireachta | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 11 July 1921; 104 years ago (1921-07-11)as theCriminal Investigation Department (CID) |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Headquarters | Harcourt Street, Dublin (D2) 53°20′03.5″N6°15′50.3″W / 53.334306°N 6.263972°W /53.334306; -6.263972 |
| Employees | Undisclosed ~ 300[1] |
| Annual budget | Undisclosed(part ofGarda Síochána budget, €1.34 billion in 2014) |
| Minister responsible | |
| Agency executives |
|
| Parent agency | Crime & Security Branch Garda Síochána |
| Website | Official website |
TheSpecial Detective Unit (SDU) (Irish:Aonad Speisialta Bleachtaireachta) is the main domesticsecurity agency of theGarda Síochána, the national police force ofIreland, under the aegis of theCrime & Security Branch (CSB).[2] It is the primarycounter-terrorism andcounter-espionage investigative unit within the state. The Special Detective Unit superseded theSpecial Branch (which they are still commonly referred to as), which itself replaced the olderCriminal Investigation Department (CID), which was founded in 1921. They work in conjunction with theIrish Military Intelligence Service (IMIS) – Ireland's nationalintelligence service – on internal matters. The unit's headquarters are inHarcourt Street,Dublin City.
TheEmergency 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]
The Civic Guard was formed by theProvisional Government in February 1922 to take over the responsibility of policing the fledglingIrish Free State.
TheGarda Síochána (Temporary Provisions) Act 1923 enacted after the creation of the Irish Free State on 8 August 1923,[4] provided for the creation of "a force of police to be called and known as 'TheGarda Síochána'".[5]
Separate from the Gardaí, a Protection Officers Corps was set up to provide bodyguards for prominent treatyites during theCivil War. There was also a more secretive body called the Citizens Defence Force, responsible directly toKevin O’Higgins and funded through the offices of Arthur Cox.
In charge of it was Captain Henry Harrison, an Englishman who had been a meddler in Irish politics for many years. The exact function of this force remains unclear but some believe responsible for the unsolved disappearance of a number of prominent Republicans at that time. The remains of one of them, Noel Lemass, were discovered by accident years afterwards, secretly buried in the Dublin Mountains.
Oriel House was taken over and became a much-feared interrogation centre. The team, about 80-strong, was accused of using brutal interrogation techniques and of the assassination of republican suspects and prisoners. A study of the period concluded,[6]
"Oriel House succeeded in its task of suppressing small scale republican activities in the Dublin area, not by the sophistication and efficiency its intelligence work... but by the more direct method of striking terror into its opponents."
They were disbanded after the Civil War: supposedly because of squeamishness on the part ofKevin O’Higgins; but a core was retained as G-division of theDublin Metropolitan Police: the G-men, headed by ex-RIC Inspector David Neligan.
In 1926, after the DMP had been amalgamated with the Gardaí, this unit was renamed the Special Branch in imitation of English nomenclature.
The responsibilities of theGarda Síochána Special Detective Unit include;
Gardaí use five levels to grade the internationalterror threat level for Ireland; low, moderate, substantial, severe and critical.
The grades 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".[7][8]
SDUbodyguards accompany thePresident of Ireland,Catherine Connolly, on official visits inIreland and internationally, and theTaoiseach,Micheál Martin, is protected by a Close Protection detail from the SDU.[9]
Full-time armed protection and transport is afforded to theTánaiste,Minister for Justice,Attorney General,Chief Justice,Director of Public Prosecutions andGarda Commissioner.[10]
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.[11]
Ambassadors and high-ranking foreign diplomats inIreland 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 theembassies and diplomatic residences of theUnited States,United Kingdom andIsrael in Dublin.[12]
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 300plainclothes detectives, and a further 100 officers attached to the Emergency Response Unit.[13]
The agency is headed by aDetective Chief Superintendent, who is under the command of theAssistant commissioner in charge of theCrime & Security Branch (CSB), who reports directly to the Garda Commissioner. The Garda Commissioner briefs theMinister for Justice,Taoiseach and theNational Security Committee (NSC) onstate security matters.
The SDU uses anti-terrorism legislation (chiefly theOffences against the State Acts) to conduct operations and uses the non-jurySpecial 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.
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 payconfidential 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 andIrish Military Intelligence Service. In 2014, it was €1 million.[14]
Although the service's jurisdiction is theRepublic of Ireland, officers from the unit have been active inNorthern Ireland, a region which is officially part of theUnited Kingdom.[15]
In 2013, Ireland had the fourth highest number of arrests for terrorism-related offences in the entireEuropean Union, with 41 individuals arrested, behind only France (225), Spain (90) and the United Kingdom (77), according toEuropol.[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, behindGreece (27 years) and Spain (14 years).[17]
The GardaCounter-Terrorism International (CTI) unit was established in 2014 as a dedicated section of the SDU to identify and monitorIslamic 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 withhomegrown terrorism.[1]
The GardaHostage Negotiation Section (HNS), officially formed in 2007, is a subdivision of the Garda SDU. It is headed by an experiencedDetective Superintendent, who cannot be identified for operational reasons.
The senior HNS officer along with the Garda National Negotiator Co-Ordinator (NNC) are involved in the selection, training and coordination of the more than 70 specialist Garda negotiators stationed in all divisions in the country.
Officers under the command of this section are not necessarily Special Branch detectives.
Negotiators are educated at theGarda Síochána College,Metropolitan Police Service,Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Mental Hospital (HSE National Forensic Mental Health Service).[19]
The GardaWitness Protection Unit is a small, dedicated and highly secretive subsection of the SDU, which operates the state'sWitness Security Programme, at the direction of theAttorney 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]
The Special Detective Unit works closely with other specialist and national units within theGarda Síochána, namely theNational Surveillance Unit (NSU) – a policeintelligence gathering agency – and the heavily armed intervention teams of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU). The Special Detective Unit works with theNational Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB) in relation tofinancial intelligence andterrorism financing. TheIrish Military Intelligence Service – Ireland's national intelligence agency – shares intelligence, trains with and carries out joint operations with the unit. The SDU has historically operated in tandem with American, British and other European law enforcement agencies in combating terrorists and foreign government threats. They maintain a strong working relationship with thePolice Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), LondonMetropolitan Police Service (MPS, or 'the Met'), BritishSecurity Services (MI5) and theFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), among others, and share information withEuropol andInterpol.
An MI5 unit based at the regional headquarters (Palace Barracks) inHolywood,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 suspectedal-Qaeda bomb-making factory inCounty 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'Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and FBI in monitoring, arresting and prosecuting suspected al-Qaeda extremists usingIreland as a launchpad for terror attacks onEurope and the US.[23] The agency was involved in foiling several radical Islamic militants inCork suspected of plotting to assassinate Swedish cartoonistLars Vilks in 2009, in response to anal-Qaeda in Iraq bounty after theMuhammad drawings controversy, working with British and American intelligence agencies.[24][25]
In 2010, the Special Detective Unit, GardaBureau of Fraud Investigation (GBFI) andCriminal Assets Bureau (CAB) broke up what was described by Europol as "one of the biggest and most sophisticated counterfeiting operations ever uncovered in Europe", which had the capacity to produce €200 million (£167 million/$276 million) incounterfeitbanknotes annually, some of which were shipped as far away as Japan, in an attempt to fundIRA terrorist and criminal activities.[26]
The Special Detective Unit was the principal security agency involved in protecting Britain'sQueen Elizabeth II on herhistoric visit to Ireland in the summer of 2011, facing a significant threat from dissident republican paramilitary organizations, and they prevented a number of attempted bombings and assassination attempts to ensure a peaceful visit.[27][28] The SDU also worked alongside theUnited States Secret Service (USSS) andDiplomatic Security Service (DSS) in a heightened security state during the visit of US PresidentBarack Obama to Ireland in 2011, fearing retaliation fromal-Qaeda terrorists in response to thedeath of Osama bin Laden a number of weeks earlier. It was Obama's first trip overseas following the killing of bin Laden byUS Navy SEALs in Pakistan, and his visit was deemed a major success.[29]
Following the outbreak of theSyrian Civil War (2011–2024) and the campaign of violence perpetrated by the "Islamic State" (2014) terrorist organisation inIraq, the Middle Eastern Bureau of the Special Detective Unit and the Irish Military Intelligence Service increased their monitoring ofIrish residents andcitizens who travelled to conflict regions in theMiddle East to partake in fighting, with the fear they may become radicalised and carry out Islamicjihadist terrorist attacks in Ireland, Europe andNorth America upon their return.[30] The Middle Eastern Bureau and Military Intelligence is tasked with monitoring between 30 and 60 people living in Ireland who are under suspicion due to their links withMuslim extremist organisations.[31][32] The Irish authorities have been working with the British security services, MI5 and theSecret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6), to identify possible returning terrorists by sharing data, information and intelligence, operating a joint database and watchlist, and cross-checking airline passenger manifests to track Irish and UK residents and citizens who are travelling to and from conflict zones in the Middle East.[33] The USNational Security Agency (NSA) also shares intelligence with the Gardaí and Defence Forces security services with regards to the activities of fighters in Syria and Iraq who have originated from Ireland.[34]
On 11 August 2024, SDU officers arrested a man who made death threats against Taoiseach Simon Harris and his family.[35] On August 16, 2024, SDU officers are investigating a stabbing attempt atRenmore Barracks.[36]
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 beenunlawfully killed in the line of duty since 1940.[37]
shaded rows denote when officers werekilled 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 a cash-in-transit van,County Limerick[44] |
All officers within the unit carry firearms, and train more often than regular police detectives.
All officers are armed with concealedsemi-automatic pistols, and if the situation requires, they have access toshotguns,submachine guns,assault rifles andsniper rifles.
The SDU has a large pool of unmarked and armoured cars, and has access to helicopters if needed.
It has been alleged that the Special Detective Unit has been involved in thetelephone tapping andemail hacking of crime journalists in Ireland, in attempts to reveal the identity of sources that appear in newspaper stories on crime and terrorism.[citation needed]
A number of journalists have accused the unit of monitoring their electronic communications, as well as carrying out covert surveillance on them when they are meeting sources in person.[citation needed]
Some journalists allege they have been questioned (and threatened with arrest) about sources used in crime and terrorism stories, including about Garda officers speaking to the media when not sanctioned to do so by senior management.[citation needed]
Warrantless wiretapping by the authorities in Ireland is not illegal but in the absence of awarrant resulting evidence cannot be used to bring prosecutions in court. The press say they have been asked not to publish certain stories which may jeopardise sensitive Garda operations, but that the force has not attempted to influence reporting.[45]
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, 494call trace requests and 39IP (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 theData Protection Commissioner.[46]
| Organised & Serious Crime |
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| Security and Intelligence | ||
| Traffic | ||
| Other units / structure | ||
| Scandals | ||
| Other | ||
| Oversight | ||
| Associated bodies | ||
53°20′03.5″N6°15′50.3″W / 53.334306°N 6.263972°W /53.334306; -6.263972
