The overall strength of the Garda force will reach record levels later this week when a class of about 200 new recruits passes out at the Garda College.
The swearing-in ceremony in Templemore, Co Tipperary, should bring the number of Garda members above 14,800 for the first time in the history of the State.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents more than 11,000 rank-and-file gardaí, noted the strength of the force was still far behind the target set by former Garda commissioner Drew Harris.
While the association welcomed the record numbers, it added the rate of growth was “nowhere near fast enough to keep pace with current policing needs”.
GRA president Niall Hodgins said that Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly last week “admitted to the Public Accounts Committee that An Garda Síochána will continue to rely on gardaí to take on overtime and will continue to do so until our numbers reach 16,500, and sadly we are way off those numbers”.
“But what is really concerning is that the commissioner’s predecessor had set a target of surpassing 15,000 in 2021 and rising to 18,000 by the end of the decade, so it seems their sights are getting significantly lower.”
In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters said there were 14,683 Garda members at the end of August, which represented a “year-on-year increase of 500 gardaí”. It confirmed the passing-out ceremony on Friday was expected to increase the size of the force “to the highest number in the history of the State”, subject to the final number of those passing out being confirmed.
The increasing size of the organisation over the past 12 months had “enabled the introduction of high-visibility policing in Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway, as well as supporting other units across the organisation”.
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As well as Friday’s passing-out ceremony, another intake of recruits will take place next Monday, and before year end, a class that has been in training for some time will pass out.
“Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly [has said] it is the organisation’s intention to meet and exceed the Government target of recruiting 5,000 additional gardaí by 2030. If this is achieved, it is estimated that the overall number of gardaí will be approximately 16,500,” the statement added.
This would bring the “police to population ratio broadly in line with Police Scotland, which polices a similar population to our own”. At the same time, the Garda’s “retention rate is much better than many other UK, European and international police services”.
The GRA has expressed its concern at a “crisis” around the number of Garda members retiring and resigning, saying 400 members had exited so far this year. A significant spike in age-related retirements is expected over the next decade due to accelerated recruitment undertaken 30-40 years ago.
The previous record for Garda numbers, of 14,750, was reached in March 2020, after hundreds of recruits in the Templemore college effectively bypassed training and were sworn in as gardaí with full powers. That unprecedented move was undertaken in a bid to boost numbers for a pandemic-related policing surge.
When those recruits were fast-tracked, the number of sworn members in the Garda jumped by almost 300 overnight. However, the Garda College then closed, due to pandemic restrictions, and the strength of the force steadily declined for several years, as older members retired, and others resigned.
When recruitment recommenced after the pandemic, it was very sluggish at first. Some of the first classes passing out in Templemore were barely above 100 recruits, though 200 members or more should have been passing out in each class.
The Department of Justice said in a statement one of Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan’s “key priorities is to see more gardaí on our streets engaging in high-visibility policing and the plan to increase recruitment into An Garda Síochána is working”.
O’Callaghan is confident the highest-ever number of serving gardaí will be reached by the end of this year, it said.