Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, we all condemn what was an appalling attack on Tom Niland. It represents a terrible cruelty, viciousness and savagery that we should not tolerate in our society.

My understanding is that there are 292 members of An Garda Síochána in the Sligo division. Our numbers might differ; we have to correlate them. I will come back to the Deputy in that regard. There are 189 members in Sligo county, specifically, and approximately 57 vehicles in its fleet and so forth.

The first point I will make is that it is an operational issue. We do not run the details of the gardaí. I do not decide how many gardaí are going into a particular division or location. We are increasing the number of gardaí and recruiting more year-on-year and we will continue to do that. Obviously, the Garda Commissioner and Garda senior management will allocate resources as they believe is optimal in terms of the various situations on the ground in different areas.

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