Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to confirm that I did not distribute that leaflet in my constituency. It was distributed by a member of the council and it shows that crime went down in 2021 and went back up in 2022. That is because we were in a lockdown in 2021 and crime rates fell when most of the country were confined to their homes.

On the Deputy's substantive question, I can make that commitment. We have provided enough funding in the budget for this year to recruit 1,000 new gardaí. It is a stretch target and it remains our target but we are confident that the number of additional gardaí who are sworn this year and who are new to the force will exceed the number who resign and retire. We will see a net increase in the number of gardaí again this year, and that is not taking into account the hundreds of Garda staff who we are taking on, who free up Garda officers for front-line duties.

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