| Airport Police Service Póilíní an t-Aerfoirt |
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| Badge of the Airport Police Service. | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1936 |
| Employees | 300 plus civilian support |
| Legal personality | Governmental: Government agency |
| Jurisdictional structure | |
| Population | Nil - 25 million passengers per year and airport staff over three airports |
| Legal jurisdiction | Land & property belonging to Minister for Transport , Dublin Airport Authority |
| Governing body | Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport |
| Constituting instruments |
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| General nature | |
| Specialist jurisdiction | Buildings and lands occupied or explicitly controlled by the institution and the institution's personnel, and public entering the buildings and precincts of the institution. |
| Operational structure | |
| Headquarters | Dublin Airport, Ireland |
| Facilities | |
| Stations | 3 |
| Website | |
| http://www.daa.ie | |
The Airport Police Service (Irish: Póilíní an t-Aerfoirt) is a small police force responsible for providing general policing and aviation security duties at the three Irish state airports in the Republic of Ireland: Dublin Airport, Cork Airport and Shannon Airport. The Airport Police service was first founded in 1936 in Dublin Airport and first became "Authorised Officers" under section 15 of the Air Navigation and Transport Act 1950 for the Minister of Transport.
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The APS is established, funded and maintained by the owners of Dublin Airport, Cork Airport and Shannon Airport, the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) which is a State owned Airport Authority by the Irish Government.
The Role & Objectives of the Airport Police Service is the prevention,detection and investigation of crime and the safety and security of all persons and property in the airport while also protecting the airport from acts of unlawful interference to civil aviation.
The DAA are the "statutory undertakers" under section 23 of the Air Navigation and Transport (Amendment) Act 1998. The company meets requirements under the act by having it's own Police Service while also meeting other requirements under other National & International Aviation Legislation which are required to be met for the airport operate.
Officers of the service have police powers authorised by the Minister for Transport / DAA under section 48 of the Act of 1998 and other powers granted through other Acts, police officers of the APS after selection and successful completion of recruit training are appointed and empowered as Authorised Officers and issued with a warrant card, these powers may be used within the limits and premises of each of the airports of the DAA, and elsewhere on lands belonging to the Minister of Transport.
Members of the Airport Police have the powers to stop and search (including persons, their property and vehicles, aircraft and cargo in an airport), demand a person's details and other relevant information, detain persons and/or remove them from the airport, and arrest on the minister's land—including the airport, an aeroplane, runways, and car parks—which includes any roadways, land or property owned, leased or operated by the Dublin Airport Authority or Minister for Transport, even if it is located outside of an airport's security perimeter fence.
Under Section 33 of the Air Navigation and Transport Act 1988 (as amended by the Air Navigation and Transport Act 1998), they can arrest persons in connection with offences under that Act or other legislation and have various other powers of enforcement conferred upon them, such as those detailed within the Airport Byelaws.
Officers of the force effected several hundred arrests during 2009 for a wide variety of offences ranging from assaults to theft and fraud to public order, in addition to many hundreds of minor offences dealt with by way of reporting for summons to the District court to initiate a prosecution, or by the issue of fixed penalty notices.
Airport Police officers are required to transfer custody of their prisoners over to the Garda Síochána to be processed via the Director of Public Prosecutions.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between APS and the Garda Síochána, Office of the Revenue Commissioners and other agencies sets out each organisation's responsibilities and inter-agency co-operation.
The APS investigate all criminal offences under the Airports and Aviation Acts 1936 to 2004, Airport bye laws and other legislation within the Airport, except those offences deemed as serious or that are beyond the capability or capacity of its limited size. Serious offences committed within the Airport, such as acts of terrorism, murder, manslaughter, rape, facilitation of illegal immigration or any incident involving the death (suspicious or otherwise) of a person are investigated by the Garda Síochána. However, APS officers will take immediate necessary action prior to the arrival of the Garda Síochána in such cases.
At Dublin Airport, the Police Service now operates as a separate service to the Airport Fire and Rescue Service, recruiting officers directly into either service. However a number of officers still rotate duties between both services on a shift by shift or operational requirements basis. In both Cork Airport and Shannon Airport the Police/Fire service is still combined. There are over 300 members of all services between the three airports.
Although the majority of officers perform uniformed and plain clothes patrol duties, the force also includes a number of varied police operational support units such as a police dog unit,an Investigation support section amongst others.The state airports operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and see over 25 million passengers combined pass through them each year. This ensures that Airport Police officers are kept busy, and have a very high level of interaction with the public, unlike some other airport police forces in other countries.
Officers wear uniforms similar to the modern police tactical uniforms in the United Kingdom: these are dark navy tactical uniform shirts made of breathable material, along with dark navy combat pants and black Gore-Tex Boots, while some other members wear a station dress uniform which consists of a blue shirt, tie, epaulettes and navy dress uniform which is more akin to the uniform of a Garda, while both styles of uniform continue to wear the traditional navy blue peaked cap with a Airport Police cap badge attached.
Members are also issued stab-resistant vests, high-visibility equipment carrier vests, rigid handcuffs along with encrypted personal radios and other standard and specialist issue police equipment.
The Airport Police Service operates a small fleet of police Battenburg markings equipped vehicles and utilise unmarked police vehicles as well as EOD/IED Mobile Bomb Containment Systems, Incident Control Unit, Segway i2 Patroller (Dublin only). All police drivers undergo a standard police driving course.
The force also operates state-of-the-art police control rooms for the management and co-ordination of the Airports' policing operations and incident response.
| Common battenburg markings used by Airports emergency services |
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| Airport Police | Yellow / Blue | |
| Airport Fire and Rescue service | Yellow / Red | |
The Airport Fire & Rescue Service (Irish: Seirbhís Doiteán an t-Aerfoirt) (AFRS) operate from the fire station on Dublin Airport's westlands beside the ATC complex. The services provides fire cover to both the entire airport campus, aircraft operations and to surrounding areas on request from the Dublin Fire Brigade. They also have the largest non-military fire station in Europe.
The AFRS is classed as a "Rescue Fire Fighting Service" and it is required and maintained by the DAA to satisfy and comply with Irish Aviation Authority licensing and regulatory requirements as per ICAO Annex 14 Airport Manual.
ICAO-Annex 14 requires the RFFS to be;
The fire service also provide a emergency ambulance service, with paramedics trained to Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council (PHECC) standard. They have a modern array of Crash Rescue Fire appliances along with its own two domestic tenders and a brand new fire simulation rig along with their own ex-Ryanair Boeing 737 used for training purposes.
Due to the smaller size of Cork and Shannon airports, the Fire Service are manned by a mix of police and firefighters rotating between roles. In Dublin, the services operate under the umbrella of the APFS, but operate independently to each other, except for a number of officers whom continue to rotate between both services.
The APFS band was formed in October 1995, and gave its first public performance on Dublin Airport in January 1996.
The band comprises serving member of both services and associate members they provide music for official Airport functions (such as Graduation Ceremonies at the Airport Police and Airport Fire & Rescue Service) the band undertakes a community-oriented programme each year performing at schools, festivals and charity events.
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