A GARDA is being treated in hospital after he suffered a gunshot injury during a training exercise today.
The officer was injured in the leg after an accidental discharge during his training with the Army Ranger Wing at the Curragh Camp in Co Kildare.
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The garda was later brought to Tallaght Hospital and is believed to have suffered a fractured leg.
The incident happened when the Army Ranger Wing was training with Gardai.
Gardai are treating the incident as an accidental discharge investigation.
A source said: “The officer who was injured is doing well and this was a complete accident.
“It looks as if the gun went off accidentally when he was in the middle of a training exercise.
“The Ranger Wing acted very swiftly and assisted him until he was brought to hospital.”
A spokesperson for the Defence Force confirmed the officer had been injured during a training exercise.
They said: “The Defence Forces can confirm that a member of An Garda Siochana was injured while undertaking training in the Defence Forces Training Centre at the Curragh camp.”
The Army Ranger Wing is the special operations force of the Irish Defence Forces.
The unit, which was established in 1980 primarily to combat terrorism, selects its personnel from the Naval Service and the Air Corps.
It evolved to both special operations and counter-terrorism roles at home and overseas from 2000 after the end of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
In its domestic counter terrorism role, the ARW trains and deploys with Gardai’s specialist armed intervention unit, the Emergency Response Unit.