The Garda Representative Association says there are serious shortfalls in the basics of policing in Ireland.
It's emerged there were communication failures on the night of the Dublin riots, with the central control room unable to speak directly with the Public Order Unit.
President of the GRA, Brendan O'Connor, says major emergencies are something that any police service should be able to deal with:
"We have inadequate equipment that's not up to speed with what's standard issue across the world. Members are relying on informal networks of communication, that they don't know at the time of an emergency, what is proper communications protocol, what channels they should go on. The people in control rooms don't know what resources they have available to them. I hate to use the word but it's frightening for the public, but it's shambolic".
