Investigations will look at all aspects of siege

Inquiries:Three separate inquiries are to be established into the armed siege at Gort, Co Galway, with a possible future investigation of the Garda management of the incident by the Garda Ombudsman Commission.

The recently established commission will not be directly involved in the initial investigation of the incident as the office will not be fully operational until next year. However a spokesman said it could decide to conduct an investigation if it was felt questions remained to be answered by the Garda.

"The Garda Ombudsman Commission could decide to review the incident, but there is no suggestion at the present time that they will need to."

Two investigations have been launched following the incident: a criminal investigation to determine why the incident began and to decide if the man involved, Anthony Burke, will face charges, and an internal Garda investigation, conducted by Chief Supt Kieran Kenny, to assess the management of the incident.

Supt Kenny was formerly the Garda liaison officer for the Barr tribunal into the fatal shooting of John Carthy at Abbeylara, Co Longford, in 2000. The incident will also be examined by the Garda Inspectorate. The inspectorate, established last year, has been asked by the Minister for Justice to review Garda practice and procedures in dealing with incidents such as the Abbeylara shooting.

The shooting of Mr Burke comes less than three months after the publication of the Barr tribunal report. In his report Mr Justice Robert Barr was highly critical of the Garda conduct of the Abbeylara siege.

While both incidents have ended in a Garda shooting, the incident at Gort appears to have been managed differently. Gardaí were aware of Mr Burke's medical history at an early stage and a psychiatrist from the Central Mental Hospital in Dublin was available at the scene.

Gardaí said Mr Burke made just one request during the siege, to have a Garda cordon moved a few metres farther from his home, and this was complied with. At Abbeylara, Mr Carthy made requests for a solicitor and for cigarettes but neither were met.

An on-scene commander, specifically trained for such incidents, was deployed to Gort from an earlier stage to assume "full control" of the scene. At Abbeylara, local senior officers were used as commanders, with responsibility for command of the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) assumed by a separate ERU officer - a move severely criticised by Mr Justice Barr.