Commissioner urges significant increase in Garda numbers

Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has said recruitment levels to the force will need to be significantly increased to about 500 members annually if a quality policing service is to be maintained.

In her most significant comments on recruitment since taking charge of the force, initially on an interim basis, 13 months ago, Ms O’Sullivan said current levels of recruitment would only maintain the force at just under 13,000 members.

“Certainly 300 will keep us at a standstill,” she said of the number currently in training at the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary. “But in order to make sure that we actually have the capacity and the capability to deal with various crime types and certainly emerging crime trends, we would need some place in excess of maybe 500 a year.”

While welcoming plans for a further 250 recruits to begin training later in the year, she said the numbers being hired should be kept under review.

“Policing is a profession that needs a constant influx of new people,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan’s comments were significant because senior officers are usually very guarded in their public comments, especially when suggesting policy plans to the Government in any area of policing, such as recruitment.

She was speaking at the Garda Superintendents’ Association annual conference in Naas, Co Kildare.

She was commenting after the association said recruitments levels were insufficient. It said the rate of Garda retirements and the recruitment embargo for six years until last autumn meant there were chronic personnel shortages.

“We are not gaining any ground in terms of our overall strength,” president of the association Supt Gerry Smith said.

The association said only an accelerated recruitment drive, above the 300 now in training and the additional 250 recruits to be taken on in coming months, would enable the Garda to provide the level of policing demanded by the public.