Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. I welcome the witnesses before the committee.

I wish to start on the resourcing issue. For example, each time we ask the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, we are constantly told that the deployment of resources is entirely under the Garda Commissioner's remit. Obviously, we expect that this is done efficiently and effectively. Mr. Harris acknowledged that the 2022 budget was the largest. In fact, it increased again in 2023 and 2024. However, looking at the budget and the numbers, the budget has gone up, but the actual number of Garda members has gone down. There were 14,491 gardaí in 2020 and by 2023, there were 13,930.

An Garda Síochána cannot police without having enough Garda personnel as they do a multiplicity of things. If the pipeline is so good, how is it that the bulk of the money is spent on personnel yet Garda numbers are decreasing? I would like to hear the response of the Garda Commissioner on the first issue of the numbers and the second issue of Garda deployment.