Earlier this week this newspaper revealed plans are under way to hire private security contractors whose “safety operatives” will patrol the streets of Dublin city centre. The plans, which are at the draft tender stage, are part of a joint initiative by the Dublin City Development Company, a body formed earlier this year to lead redevelopment of the city centre, and DublinTown, a business improvement district representing some 2,500 city centre businesses. The idea is that these operatives will “complement” the work of gardaí in policing the city centre and generally maintaining public order.

The fact that this initiative has even progressed to the proposal stage is remarkable for a whole range of reasons. The first is the question of the legal basis for private security in public spaces. You could, in a narrow sense, argue that there is some precedent for this. The private security sector in Ireland is regulated under the Private Security Services Act 2004. The Act provides a fairly broad definition of private security; a security guard is someone who, in return for payment, guards or patrols, or otherwise provides protective services for, people or property. This covers a whole range of familiar roles, from nightclub bouncers to shopping centre security guards, to the elite mercenary units tasked with hunting down and summarily executing fare dodgers on the Luas.

In a discussion of the issue on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh programme on Wednesday morning, Olga Cronin of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties pointed out that, traditionally, private security is something that is associated with either private........

© The Irish Times