I have been advised by the Public Appointments Service (PAS) that the number of applications received by them to join the Garda Reserve is as follows.
At September 2006, 6,661 applications had been received following an initial recruitment campaign. At the end of December 2007, an exercise carried out by PAS showed that a total of 7,916 applications had been received up to that date. In the first ten months of this year, there have been a further 3,729 applications. 360 people have graduated as Garda Reserve members since its establishment. 29 of those have since left the Garda Reserve. The majority (20) have gone on to join the full-time force while 9 have left for personal reasons.
In 2007 expenditure from the Garda Reserve subhead in the Garda Vote amounted to €45,000. The provision in this subhead for 2008 is €1.28 million and expenditure to the end of October amounts to €229,000. The estimates for 2009 provide €1.28 million for this subhead. There are also costs which are not separately assigned to the Garda Reserve. These include the salary costs of Garda trainers as training Reserve members is considered part of the trainers' normal duties. In addition, uniforms for all Garda members are procured in bulk and as such, the specific cost of uniforms for the Garda Reserve members is not identifiable.
The information requested in relation to the number of hours duty that have been logged by members of the Garda Reserve since the inception of the Reserve is not readily available and could only be obtained by the disproportionate expenditure of Garda time and resources relative to the information sought. However, Section 11(4) of the Garda Síochána (Reserve Members) Regulations 2006 states that ‘A Reserve member may not be required to serve more than 208 hours of duty in any 12 month period'.