Mr. Drew Harris:

I might go back to that intake and we were very glad to receive 120 high-calibre individuals who attested last Friday. The fact there are 120 is nothing to do with the members of that cohort but about the speed with which we process applications. Those recruits joined their training on 23 September 2024 but that group had all applied from 2022 to 2023. None of them had applied in 2024, so this is illustrative of how long they were in the process.

We have sought to speed that up. All areas of the recruitment process have been, in effect, revamped and reassessed. We have done things like assessment days where we bring together the physical competence test, the drugs test and the medical test and also talk to the vetting unit. We are trying to speed things up all the time. The significance of the intake on Monday, just yesterday, is that 20 individuals from the 2025 competition were in that class already. The numbers are looking well for the August intake because a number of people could not join in June due to commitments over the summer and will come to us in August. At the same time, we are working quickly through the February 2025 competition to make sure we have a good intake.

The second part of that relates to our capacity. We need to build our capacity to 250 per class. We are working with the OPW around the physical works needed to achieve that. Having 250 people per class will allow 1,000 trainees to come into the college. There is huge interest in joining An Garda Síochána. We need to ensure that, in a competitive environment, we are working through these processes quickly. While there are a number of hurdles an individual must clear, between the interview, the physical assessment, the medical assessment and vetting, as quickly as we can do those, the more flow-through we will have.