Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

During the most recent recruitment campaign, over 5,000 people applied so the Public Appointments Service has a significant number of people to go through. It is obviously not just dealing with An Garda Síochána but the entire public sector. I know there have even been difficulties in recruiting people to the Public Appointments Service so its capacity to deal not just with its own recruitment campaign but with many others is limited. A significant amount of work has been done to expand and the Public Appointments Service has gone through the applications as quickly as possible. It has to find out if people still want to take on the role or position. Some people do not want to so there is an initial process and then interviews, the fitness test, the medical, vetting and, if somebody has lived abroad, vetting abroad. There is no ability to dictate what happens in terms of vetting abroad and how long it will take. We have done everything. We work closely with the Garda Commissioner and his team to reduce the timeline as much as possible but, again, where there is a limited resource within the Public Appointments Service, we must work with it. If there are ways in which some of these things can be done in parallel, that is happening already.

Regarding the fitness test, people are given more than one or two chances. They are given an opportunity to come back a number of times. Information is available for people who apply. I think there is a video showing them exactly what the test involves and what they need to prepare for. That information is available. If people have not seen the video and they fail, they are obviously alerted to it and given as much support as possible because we do not want people failing the fitness test. There may be a medical issue or something that for some reason precludes them but if they can improve their fitness, it is really important that they are supported.

On the overall numbers going into the Garda College, of the 155 recruits in the last class, 153 will come out, so there is a certain level of drop-off but it is low. It is not 20 or 30. It tends to be just one or two.

Where gardaí go is very much a decision for the Garda Commissioner in terms of where resources are needed. Of the new classes coming out, a significant number have gone to Dublin. This allows for transfers and for people to be freed up to move outside Dublin to other regions.One of the challenges often presented to me was that of people not being able to transfer from where they were working, be it Dublin or elsewhere. However, now that we have more recruits coming out of the Garda College, a transfer applicant might be able to move from Dublin to a rural part. While higher numbers are going to Dublin, recruitment frees up people to move around also. While just one individual from an attestation might be going to a certain county or area, there might be many more going there. However, it is the role of the Garda Commissioner to identify where members go. Recruitment is gaining pace. We will have 153 coming out of the college this Friday and a new class going in at the end of the year. This shows that the momentum is building.