Gardai set up fund to help NYPD after attacks

Members of the Garda are to contribute a portion of their wages over the next three weeks to the New York Police Department as a gesture of support, it was announced today.

The actual amount of the donation has not been disclosed.

Announcing the plans today, the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, said the decision had been made in conjunction with the four Garda Staff Associations, the Chief Constable of the RUC and the Police Federation of Northern Ireland.

The move is intended as a gesture of support to the injured police officers and relatives of the dead and missing by the membership of both forces, he said.

"We hope this gesture will ease in some small way the financial burden which will inevitably follow in the aftermath of the horror in the United States last week," Mr Byrne said.

"Every officer in the force feels an immense solidarity with their colleagues in the New York Police Department."

RUC Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan said the move was a bid to show "kinship" with American colleagues.