Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hope we would all accept that the critical building block for a policing service for our future is actually the people working within the service, in other words, the gardaí themselves. The Taoiseach's response did not reflect the fact gardaí are resigning in increasing numbers, with nearly three times the number resigning from the force last year when compared with 2017. Indeed, the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors have raised the difficulty of retaining gardaí within the service and in encouraging new recruits. I am not talking about what they call natural wastage or people retiring. I am talking about relatively young officers walking away from the job.

We know that just a fraction of the new recruits target was met last year and that Garda numbers have not returned to their pre-Fine Gael-led Government levels. In my constituency, the number of community gardaí attached to Cabra, the Bridewell and Mountjoy Garda stations has fallen from 78 to 35 over the past decade. The number of gardaí assigned to the six public order units operating full-time across the Dublin Garda divisions has also fallen by 30% over the past three years. Recent crime statistics have shown a rise in almost all categories.

Recruitment and retention needs to be gripped. Low morale comes from far too few gardaí and shortfalls in resources, including infrastructure and IT resources, equipment and technologies. When this is coupled with the increases in resignations and falling recruitment, gardaí do not have adequate support and resources, and it is communities like the ones I represent that are, quite frankly, left to pick up the pieces.

Does the Taoiseach recognise the scale of the challenge for An Garda Síochána? Will he reassure those working within that service that the Government is committed to addressing that?

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