Mr. Drew Harris:

I thank the committee for the invitation to discuss the 2023 appropriation accounts of An Garda Síochána. I note the committee's interest in discussing Chapter 6, which deals with the cost of policing non-public duty events. We take very seriously our requirement to ensure value for money in regard to all our spending, including overtime. Our financial position is regularly reviewed and, where required, measures are put in place to reduce potential overspends.

In 2023, the Government provided An Garda Síochána with the biggest budget in its history to date. Gross expenditure in the year was €2.3 billion. After taking account of appropriations-in-aid of €135 million, the net expenditure was just over €2.17 billion.

Looking back, 2023 was a particularly significant year for us and for the country. The State visit of President Joe Biden took place over three days and was a very important visit. He had engagements in Dublin, Louth and Mayo, involving multiple public and crowd events. As such, the visit required one of the largest policing and security operations we have ever mounted. The cost of overtime incurred for the visit was €22 million, which accounted for a large proportion of our overall overtime cost in 2023 of €184 million. Overall costs associated with the visit came in at €32 million.

A further considerable area of overtime expenditure in 2023 occurred in the area of policing protests. That year saw a significant increase in the number of protests, particularly in the Dublin metropolitan region. In 2022, gardaí responded to 307 protests in the region. In 2023, that number increased to 617. The nature of this protest activity was found to be more disruptive than in earlier years. On 23 November, there was very serious public disorder in Dublin city centre. In 2023, An Garda Síochána was allocated an additional €10 million for overtime towards delivering more than 16,500 additional policing hours per month in Dublin city centre from July onwards.

Also in 2023, to support our commitment to increase Garda numbers, we launched a new Garda recruitment campaign under the tag line, "It's a job worth doing". The campaign served to generate interest in An Garda Síochána as an employer of choice. It saw 4,973 candidates apply in 2023, followed by competitions in 2024 and 2025. This creates a strong pipeline for continued growth in garda numbers.

We are committed to meeting the Government's target of recruiting 5,000 gardaí over the next five years. That will require us to expand our facilities at the Garda College. We are working on a plan with the Office of Public Works that will allow us to do so. We are also discussing alternative education options for Garda trainees with third level institutions.

Retention is also an area we proactively seek to address. I have previously pointed to the low resignation rate in An Garda Síochána compared with other police services. While we do not want to lose any gardaí, a total of 140 gardaí out of some 14,000 resigned last year, putting our resignation rate at 1%. This is very favourable compared with other police services and, indeed, other employers. Set against an economy at near full employment, it shows that being a garda is still an attractive proposition. We also see a small number of gardaí who had left now rejoining. Another indicator of the interest in a career as a garda is the strong interest we see in promotion competitions within the organisation.

In terms of gardaí performing non-public duties, we are currently working on the recommendations from the highly valuable audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General. We accept all those recommendations and want to implement them to the full. We have conducted a review of our billing rate and the management of actual costs incurred in respect of policing events and other non-public duties.

I draw attention to some other areas in which we invested in 2023 that will pay dividends in the coming months and years. Notably, we invested €21.5 million from 2023 in our air support unit. That will increase our operational capabilities in respect of policing, security and, in particular, surveillance operations. Those funds have gone towards the purchase of two new helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft, all of which will be in operation either at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.

We have also invested heavily in the purchase of new vehicles. In 2023, 63 electric vehicles, EVs, were purchased, with 105 full EVs in the fleet at the end of the year. We continue to grow and adapt our fleet. It now stands at 3,672 vehicles, which is an increase of one third since 2018. In addition to the overall increase in the fleet, of particular interest is our purchase of two water cannon and unmarked road policing vehicles. The fleet now includes 44 public order vehicles, 84 armed support unit vehicles, ten community policing vans and 12 forensic collision investigation vehicles.

We have also adopted an information-led approach to policing, which has put more information in the hands of gardaí while on the beat, with the issuing of some 15,000 mobility devices. This improves efficiencies by minimising the time it takes to retrieve information about vehicles and people and enabling swifter issuing of fixed-penalty charge notices. Since their introduction in 2020, we have seen more than 810,000 fixed-penalty charge notices issued in this way.

We have further supported gardaí and our Garda staff with the development and implementation of new technology systems, including the investigation management system, the duty roster management system and the computer-aided dispatch system, GardaSAFE. Last year, GardaSAFE dealt with 1.2 million calls for assistance.

I hope I have given a broad reflection of where we are in terms of our spending in 2023 and how that is filtering through in providing value for money and improving service delivery. I am confident, as Accounting Officer for An Garda Síochána, that public moneys under my control were expended in 2023 with an ethos of value for money and investing in the future of our services on behalf of the State, the Government and the society we serve.