Garda John O’Neill, stationed in Bandon, Co Cork used his protective jacket to assist the children as regular gardaí are not equipped with bullet-proof shields.

The selfless actions were recounted at the GRA conference yesterday by Det Padraig Harrington to highlight the lack of proper equipment for frontline gardaí.

Based at the Bridewell in Cork City, the detective said the importance of having ballistic shields was brought home to him at the incident, which he also attended.

Unarmed gardaí, he said, were on their way to the scene when it emerged a firearm had been involved. As there was no armed regional support unit (RSU) available, detectives from the city and West Cork responded.

When they arrived, they were fired on three times and the suspect walked towards them carrying a loaded firearm. Further shots were fired and as a young family were living close by, a decision was made to evacuate them for their safety.

Det Harrington took off his bullet-proof vest and found a spare in his car. Garda O’Neill took off his and wrapped each of them around the three children, all aged under seven.

Unarmed and without his own bullet-proof vest, Garda O’Neill volunteered to run back and forth with each of them to a patrol car which whisked them to safety.

“Thankfully this incident came to a satisfactory end and no one was harmed, but it could have ended very differently because of the lack of equipment available to frontline gardaí,” Det Harrington said.

The Special Detective Unit based in Dublin has the shields, but the GRA wants them issued to all 24-hour stations around the country.

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