Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

It is an exciting job but the demands are incredible and the pay, in many instances, does not provide the capacity to afford to live in the cities that gardaí are asked to police. People are leaving. While the figure in this regard is only 1% or 2%, the force is still understaffed. An intensive campaign to recruit gardaí needs to do more than tell people it is an exciting job when they are dreading the bills coming in every week. I know the Minister recognises that.

We need more of a plan. We had a recruitment process and many people expressed an interest and filled out applications but that does not seem to have translated into gardaí coming out at the end. I encourage the Minister to try to understand better why people are leaving the force. There is space for more retention officers on the force in order that when people are considering leaving, they can outline their concerns, whether emotional or financial, to a particular individual. We need to be innovative in terms of how we seek to keep gardaí on the force.

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