Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 26 June 2025
Public Accounts Committee
Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 20 - An Garda Síochána
2:00 am
Mr. Drew Harris:
I think there were backlogs that built up in the processes. We have completely re-engineered our process. We are identifying individuals who can come in, say, in August and dealing with them instead of taking everybody just in turn. We have addressed the fitness test. It now relates far more closely to the competency required for the job. We have also looked at our vetting processes. They are still under review. There are other areas of vetting we wish to explore into the future, but we have also introduced drug testing as well. We are quite unique in all the things we expect an applicant to go through, but we want to speed that up because we are losing out. People's careers develop or they find some other job they do not want to leave, so we need to be speedier in our response.
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