The Department of Justice has issued tenders for around 4.5 million rounds of ammunition for the Garda Siochana since 1998, it has emerged.
The tenders were on a list published, under EU law, of all State contracts worth over a certain amount.
According to published figures for a tender with a closing date of May 24th last year, the Department was seeking 1,750,000 rounds of assorted ammunition for the Garda. In 1999 1,274,000 rounds were sought. In 1998 the figure was 1,524,000.
A spokesman for the Garda said yesterday the exact amount of ammunition purchased and handled through the Finance and Logistics Department at Garda HQ could not be verified. But, he added: "We would purchase a large amount of ammunition because we have a number of armed units and this requires amounts of ammunition for firearms training."
Last year's tender includes 600,000 rounds of .38 special "soft point" for the standard-issue Smith & Wesson revolver. Large numbers of these guns are held in divisional Garda stations throughout the State and are issued to plain-clothes detectives on armed duties.
It also includes blanks for handguns and shotguns and 25,000 rounds of ammunition for the more high-powered handguns and sub-machineguns used by the 50-member Garda Emergency Response Unit (ERU).
Although no comment was available on the amount of ammunition being used in training, it is understood that only a small proportion of the amount sought would be used in any year. It is understood the bulk is being used to replace out-of-date stocks.
Also, a considerable amount of Garda ammunition was damaged due to poor storage conditions.
The unusually large tenders were uncovered by a Manchester-based researcher who works for Amnesty International.
The Garda does not use non-lethal firearms like plastic batons, pellet guns, tear gas and stun bags. None of these weapons was available in May last year at Abbeylara, Co Roscommon, when gardai shot dead Mr John Carthy.