Top guns

Someday, a real rain is gonna come and wash all the scum off the streets. Until then, we have the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) to keep us from harm. This elite are modern heroes, riding forth in tight-knit posses across our green and pleasant land to take on amoral desperadoes engaged in bloody turf wars.

Sadly, I speak not of the quaint Irish custom of hurling briquettes at each other after a few too many lagers, but to coteries of coked-up dungbeetles laying waste to each other with heavy weapons.

When Emissions was just a wee puff of smoke, the ERU didn't exist. All we had were Special Branch hardmen with bulging jackets and wife-beater moustaches. Thankfully they have been replaced by true professionals, bulletproof-vested Bruce Willis-alikes who may or may not have spent many hours watching footage of George Bush's CIA bodyguards to perfect their gum chewing, sunglass-wearing and intense glaring skills. No wonder the streets are so much safer these days. The poor crims don't stand a chance.

The first I heard of the ERU was watching some Limerick ganglings being brought to court on TV. Who are these Uzi-toting chaps in orange bibs, I thought? Is this some new Shannonside scobie fashion? And why aren't Special Branch arresting them? I was soon put straight. It was also explained to me that the ERU were so-dressed because it was the only way to differentiate them from all the other people carrying sub-machineguns around Limerick in broad daylight.

The Motors Editor reckons the ERU have the best job in the world. I suspect he spent his youth in the wilds of Mayo glued to the TV, eagerly digesting a steady diet of The Professionals, The A Teamand Miami Vice.

I can see what attracts him. It's their cars.

There was a time the Garda's top crimestoppers drove around in Ford Granadas held together with gaffer tape and baling twine. Nowadays, they drive BMW 5-Series and Toyota Landcruisers with blacked-out windows. Their fleet is soon to be augmented by some top-notch Audis, Volvos and, just so they blend in with the drug dealers they are targeting, BMW X5 SUVs.

They must have such a laugh tearing through traffic like bankrobbing rally drivers in high-powered motors bought, insured, taxed and fuelled with someone else's money, lights-a-flashing, sirens a blazing, Eye of The Tigeror Simply The Bestat full blast on the stereo. (A fresh-faced Malachy straight out of Tullamore being taken for his first spin once made the mistake of sticking on I Shot The Sherifffor a giggle. He's now directing traffic on Tory Island.)

If they are actually rushing to the scene of a crime, rather than back to base to catch the start of Eastenders, the rush must be all the better.

Best of all must be the court appearances. Imagine the pre-mission pep talks: "Right, Axeman, you drive. When 20 Cent gives the signal, whack on the handbrake and I'll lepp out running, with yer man under the blanket, barge into Charlie Bird and the RTÉ camera bloke. Clamps, you wave the Uzi and Mad Dog, you get the door. We'll shove yer man in and be back here in time to video ourselves on the news. Deadly."

While we're on the subject, can someone answer me this - those blankets they chuck over camera-shy crims, do they have different grades for various levels of miscreants?

Is it cashmere throws for tax-dodging politicians, itchy grey doormats for junkies and crusty, flea-ridden rags chucked out by the canine unit for the sex offenders?

If on white-collar crook duty, do they nip up the quays from the Four Courts at lunchtime to use the nice blankets for alfresco snacks in the Phoenix Park? Submachine-guns in one hand, sandwiches in the other, potshots at the pigeons. How perfectly idyllic. I'm beginning to come around to the Editor's way of thinking.