Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 July 2018
829. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the reason a Garda district (details supplied) in the Cavan and Monaghan Garda division is receiving no new probationer gardaí; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33382/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the Deputy will appreciate, the Garda Commissioner is responsible for the distribution of personnel and I, as Minister, have no direct role in the matter. Garda management keeps this distribution under review in the context of crime trends and policing priorities to ensure optimum use is made of the resources.
This Government is committed to ensuring a strong and visible police presence throughout the country in order to maintain and strengthen community engagement, provide reassurance to citizens and to deter crime. To achieve this the Government has put in place a plan for an overall Garda workforce of 21,000 personnel by 2021 comprising 15,000 Garda members, 2,000 Reserve members and 4,000 civilians. We are making real, tangible progress on achieving this goal.
The moratorium on recruitment introduced in 2010 resulted in a significant reduction in the strength of An Garda Síochána. We are now rebuilding the organisation and providing the Commissioner with the resources needed to deploy increasing numbers of Gardaí across every Division as new Garda recruits come on stream. I am informed by the Commissioner that since the reopening of the Garda College in September 2014, almost 2,000 recruits have attested as members of An Garda Síochána and have been assigned to mainstream duties nationwide. Garda numbers, taking account of retirements, increased to 13,551 at the end of 2017 – a net increase of over 600 since the end of 2016. This year a further 800 new Garda Recruits will enter the Garda College and we are on track to reach 14,000 by the end of 2018.
In so far as the allocation of newly attested Gardaí is concerned, this is a matter for the Commissioner. However, it is important to keep in mind that newly attested Gardaí have a further 16 months of practical and class-room based training to complete in order to receive their BA in Applied Policing. To ensure that they are properly supported and supervised and have opportunities to gain the required breadth of policing experience, the Commissioner's policy is to allocate them to specially designated training stations. The training stations have the appropriate structures and resources in place, including trained Garda tutors and a permanently appointed supervisory Sergeant who is thoroughly familiar with the responsibilities under the training programme. While not all Garda Stations are training stations it is important to note that the allocation of probationer Gardaí to a Divisional training station facilitates the reassignment of Gardaí to other stations within the Division, if required, by the Divisional Officer.
In addition, funding has been provided to recruit a further 500 civilians to fill critical skills gaps across the organisation and to facilitate the redeployment of Gardaí from administrative and technical duties to front-line operational duties. There are also plans to strengthen the Garda Reserve with new Reserves expected to commence training in 2018.
The work of local Gardaí is also supported by a number of Garda national units such as the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the Armed Support Units, the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau and the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and these specialist units are also receiving significant investment.
This focus on investment in personnel is critical and I am pleased that funding is in place to maintain this high level of investment in the Garda workforce to ensure that the overall vision for 2021 remains on track.
For the Deputy's information, the table, as supplied by the Commissioner, sets out the latest figures for Probationer Gardaí from 2015 to 2018 in the Cavan/Monaghan Division. The Bailieborough Garda District is not a designated training station.
|
STATION |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
Total |
|
MONAGHAN |
5 |
1 |
7 |
5 |
18 |
|
CAVAN |
5 |
7 |
10 |
3 |
25 |
|
CARRICKMACROSS |
|
|
5 |
5 |
10 |
