I reject the Deputy's assertion that there is a serious upsurge in crime. It is, however, fair to say that the use of violence in the furtherance of criminal acts is on a much higher level than was the case in, say, the pre-1970 period. The reasons for this are many and varied but time would not permit me to go into them here. The numbers of gardaí has been rising steadily in response to this particular crime trend. In 1970 we had 6,551 gardaí. Today we have 10,984 and hundreds of civilian staff have been recruited to free up gardaí from indoor work to fulfil outdoor operational duty requirements. There are now 1,647 civilian staff working for the Garda of whom almost 700 are full-time clerical staff and 181 are traffic wardens. This figure has risen significantly over the past three years.
The compulsory retirement age for gardaí, sergeants and inspectors, at present set at 57 years, is the subject of discussion under the Garda conciliation and arbitration scheme and a meeting to discuss this particular issue is imminent. The House will appreciate that I would not wish to prejudice the discussions with the Garda representative bodies by commenting here further.
Members will of course be aware that the retirement age for the grades in question was increased temporarily from 57 to 60 between 1989 and 31 December 1992. Members attaining 57 years during that period benefited from the concession which was introduced because of the time-lag involved in recruiting additional gardaí from the Garda recruitment campaign which commenced in 1988. The temporary extension of the retirement age which applied in the period 1989 to the end of 1992 will continue to provide benefits to the force until December 1995.