Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I want to apologise to the House on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan, who, unfortunately, cannot be here today. He has asked me to take this issue on his behalf. The Minister would like to offer his sympathies to the two teenagers who were attacked on the road leading to Gormanston railway station on Sunday evening. He asks anyone who can be of assistance to An Garda Síochána in regard to this deplorable attack to contact gardaí immediately, and I am sure the House joins him in that request.

The Minister has been informed that gardaí from Laytown Garda station responded to this incident and were assisted by members of An Garda Síochána from Balbriggan and Ashbourne Garda stations, along with two mobile units from the regional armed support unit. The Minister is advised that, with assistance from the public, An Garda Síochána is making significant progress with its investigations into this matter. The Minister has been informed by the Garda authorities that a number of incidents, including robberies of mobile phones, assaults, thefts and general anti-social behaviour, have recently occurred in the Stamullen and Gormanston areas. Local Garda management has established an incident room in Laytown and all these incidents are being fully investigated. In addition, extra patrols under Operation Thor are being provided in the Stamullen and Gormanston areas to assist local gardaí.

As the Deputy will appreciate, the Garda Commissioner is responsible for the distribution of resources, including personnel, among the various Garda divisions, and the Minister has no direct role in day-to-day matters. The Minister wants to assure the Deputy and the House that the Government is committed to ensuring a strong and visible police presence throughout the country in order to maintain and strengthen community engagement, provide reassurance to citizens and to deter crime. To make this a reality, the Government has in place a plan to achieve an overall Garda workforce of 21,000 personnel by 2021, comprising 15,000 Garda members, 2,000 reserve members and 4,000 civilians.

The Minister is informed by the Commissioner that the Garda strength of the Meath division, on 30 September 2017, the latest date for which figures are readily available, was 293. There are also 16 Garda reserves and 29 civilians attached to the division. He is further informed by the Commissioner that, since the reopening of the Garda College in September 2014, close to 1,400 recruits have attested as members of An Garda Síochána and have been assigned to mainstream duties nationwide, 46 of whom have been assigned to the Meath division. In addition, another 200 trainee gardaí are scheduled to attest later this year, which will see Garda numbers, taking account of projected retirements, increase to 13,500 by the end of the year, an increase of 500 since the end of 2016.

This focus on investment in personnel is critical. The moratorium on recruitment, which was introduced in 2010, resulted in a significant reduction in the strength of An Garda Síochána. We are now rebuilding the organisation and providing the Commissioner with the resources to deploy increasing numbers of gardaí across every Garda division, including the Meath division, in the coming years. The Deputy asked that these significant issues, about which he is rightly concerned, would be brought to the attention of the Minister and I assure him that will be done.

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