Pa Daly
Question:1. Deputy Pa Daly asked the Minister for Justice when the Garda Reserve regulations will be published; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43775/23]
View answerWednesday, 11 October 2023
Questions (1)
Oral answers (6 contributions)
When will the Garda Reserve regulations be published, and will the Minister make a statement in that regard?
The Government is committed to building stronger, safer communities. Strengthening An Garda Síochána is, of course, at the core of that. We will continue to provide An Garda Síochána with the resources it needs to ensure communities around Ireland are safe and feel safe. That is reflected in the unprecedented budget allocation of €2.3 billion to An Garda Síochána. That is an increase of 23% since 2020.
The Government will support An Garda Síochána to increase substantially the size of the Garda Reserve in the coming years. The Garda Reserve represents a real opportunity for anyone who wishes to support policing and give something back to his or her community. The Garda Reserve upholds and reinforces An Garda Síochána's strong community links. It provides the organisation with capacity to draw on additional resources to assist in essential policing functions. I acknowledge the important contribution made by all current and past members of the Garda Reserve, who selflessly volunteer their time for the benefit of each and every one of us.
As part of A Policing Service for the Future, the Government's plan to modernise and strengthen An Garda Síochána, the Commissioner developed the Garda Reserve strategy 2021-25. This provides a roadmap for the development of this important service.
The new recruitment campaign for the reserve, the first such campaign since 2017, will take place in early 2024. In preparation for the campaign, my Department is engaging with the Office of the Attorney General on progressing the Garda Reserve regulations. I expect to have the final version of those regulations later this week. Consultation will then take place with the Garda associations and the Policing Authority before the regulations are finalised. Obviously, I want to see that happen as quickly as possible to allow for the recruitment campaign to begin in early 2024.
These revisions include reducing prohibitions on the areas in which Garda Reserve members can serve. Additionally, the regulations will ensure a recruitment campaign is inclusive in order that we attract diverse and under-represented groups, including those from ethnic minorities, with the intention of clearly removing any perceived barriers.
During the summer, when we met with some senior gardaí and there was a big issue with presence of gardaí, not only on the streets of Dublin but around the country, one of the issues the senior gardaí brought up was the absence of these regulations. It is good to hear they will meet this week, but I ask the Minister to push ahead with the regulations as quickly as she possibly can to get more people on the streets. As she said, communities need to feel safe. I have noticed that, with larger events, the public order side of things is definitely improved when people see a large Garda presence on the streets. I agree with the Minister that recruitment is a way to reach out into newer communities. When ordinary gardaí, most importantly, are recruited, more effort should be made to reach into those new communities. It is also an opportunity to reach out to the new communities to get them into the mainstream organisation.
I absolutely believe we need to increase the numbers of reserves we have to support the work the Garda does and to allow for that increased presence and visibility on the ground as we continue to increase our normal Garda numbers as well. It has been a challenging 20 years or so since the reserve was established. There was a peak of about 1,400 reserves at a particular time, especially when there was a moratorium on the Garda College itself whereby no new recruits were coming out. When that opened up again, however, quite a significant number of reserves went through and were successful in becoming members of An Garda Síochána, which, of course, is very positive. Then the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland report in 2017 recommended that there not be any further recruitment campaigns until we had new regulations and a new strategy in place to try to remove some of the barriers that were there to reserve members working and supporting gardaí on the ground.
There has been, therefore, a body of work under way between the new strategy, which the Commissioner published in 2021, and now the new regulations, which will be published very soon to allow for a new campaign. When we opened up the college again only in the past year or two, we did not want the Public Appointments Service, PAS, process for the Garda recruitment campaign to compete with the reserve campaign. We needed to focus our priority on making sure we had as many members coming out of Templemore as possible. It is important, however, that we focus on the reserve at this stage to support it in the work it is doing.
I have just one question. How come this took so long? This issue was being flagged much earlier in the year. The Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland said the Garda Reserve is a cost-effective way to provide surge capacity for policing special events and can provide policing experience for those who may be interested in joining the force but may be undecided or wary about it. In new communities, particularly those from eastern Europe, maybe, there is a suspicion and a fear - they do not have the same relationship with the police force that maybe we have in Ireland - but this can also be a breaking ground to allow those people in. Because of the resignations we see in the organisation, we must be careful that reservists do not replace fully trained gardaí - the Garda is a professional force, and gardaí are very well trained - and that they can work together in a sort of symbiosis. I urge the Minister to get this in as soon as possible.
I appreciate that it has taken a little time since the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland report, but in that time a new strategy has been published. We have also gone through a pandemic, which meant that any type of recruitment, be it in Templemore or here, was near impossible. We have a new regulation which, as I said, will be with me by the end of the week and which will allow engagement with the associations to make sure everybody can work as effectively as possible with one another and that the new regulations, working with the new strategy, allow for as diverse a group as possible. That will also help to create pathways for members who then want to become members of An Garda Síochána as well, as we have seen in the past, where it has worked very well.
A huge body of work has been done, and I expect that in the new year we will have a new recruitment campaign. We have not put a limit or a target on the number; we want as many as possible. That is my overall objective for the early new year.