Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This Government is committed to ensuring a strong and visible police presence throughout the country in order to maintain and strengthen community engagement, to provide reassurance to citizens and to deter crime. To make this a reality, we have a plan in place to increase the overall Garda workforce to 21,000 by 2021, including 15,000 sworn members of An Garda Síochána. Real and tangible progress has been made towards this goal. Since the reopening of the Garda College in September 2014 almost 1,600 new recruits have attested as members of An Garda Síochána and have been assigned to mainstream duties across the country.

The Deputy referred to Donegal in his question. In Donegal there are 28 probationer gardaí working in stations across the county. He mentioned the Dublin metropolitan region. In north-central Dublin there are 135 new gardaí, and 141 new gardaí in south-central Dublin. I am pleased that we have 1,600 new recruits attested as members of An Garda Síochána recently. Garda numbers, taking account of projected retirements, increased to over 13,500 at the end of last year, a net increase of over 600 since the end of the previous year. There were 691 garda assigned to community policing duties as of 31 December 2017. I am pleased to say that funding remains in place to continue this high level of investment into this year.

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