Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy knows that where the Commissioner decides to deploy gardaí is an operational matter over which I have no control. If I said I was moving gardaí from one place to another, he knows what would be said. In terms of what the overall numbers are, we need to get to 14,000 gardaí, resource the special units and give additional overtime where the Garda requires it — we are giving huge amounts of overtime. We must look to the future of what additional gardaí we need even though proportionately per 10,000, per 1,000, per 100,000 or whatever way one looks at it, for a country of its size and geographic location and in terms of urban and rural areas, under every one of those headings we come out very highly. Apart from that the Government has continued to increase the number of gardaí, increase the specialisation of the Garda——

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