Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Minister for that update and the specific numbers in her response. I was very lucky to attend the centenary celebrations of An Garda Síochána in my local Garda station in Stepaside in the past few days. Having spoken with current and former members of An Garda Síochána who had been stationed at that station, as well as others, there are two issues they asked me to bring back to this Chamber. The first is the desire among serving gardaí to get out into communities and practise on-the-beat policing. That is not just the case in suburban stations such as Stepaside but in city centres such as Dublin, Cork, Galway or elsewhere. The second is the proposal to use civilian staff more efficiently in order that gardaí can spend more time on the street, in communities, liaising with schools, parents and everything else. We should allow the administrative burden to be taken on by those civilian staff. I appreciate that some of that is down to the deployment and action by the Commissioner. I ask the Minister to lay out how we can have those 15,000 gardaí on the beat as much as possible.

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