Terence Flanagan
Question:375. Deputy Terence Flanagan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality her plans to increase the number of gardaí on the beat in all areas; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29931/15]
View answerThursday, 16 July 2015
Questions (375)
Written answers
As the Deputy will appreciate, the Garda Commissioner is responsible for the distribution of personnel, among the Garda Regions, Divisions, and Districts. Garda management keep this distribution under continuing review in the context of crime trends and policing priorities so as to ensure that the best possible use is made of these resources.
The Deputy will be aware that the first intake since 2009 of 100 new recruits entered training at the Garda College, Templemore, on 15 September 2014. As part of Budget 2015, a further intake of 200 recruits in two batches was announced. On 15 December 2014, the first 100 of these batches commenced their training. The remaining 100 entered the college in February this year. In addition I received sanction from the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform for the further intake of 250 recruits in 2015. It is expected that there will be a further intake into the Garda College of 100 trainees later this month, with two further intakes scheduled for October and December of this year. This will bring the number of new recruits to 550 by the end of 2015.
The September intake of recruits attested as members of the Garda Síochána on 23 April 2015 and further attestation of 99 new Probationer Gardaí is scheduled for later this month.
On attestation, these new Probationer Gardaí will be assigned to Garda stations throughout the country, where they will be allocated to mainstream uniform policing duties, and the needs of all Garda Divisions will be fully considered as part of this process.
The number of civilians in An Garda Síochána has increased in recent years from 1,688 at the end of 2007 to approximately 2,030 (whole time equivalents) as of the 30 May 2015. Civilians are employed in a wide range of management, administrative, technical and operational duties including, Chief Administration Officer, Executive Director of Finance, Executive Director of Human Resources and Personnel Development, Crime Analysts, Head of Legal Affairs, clerical officers, photographers. It is intended to continue to maximise the number of civilian support staff in An Garda Síochána so that highly trained Gardaí can be released from administrative tasks to frontline operational policing.