Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

After June 2002, and despite the cap on public service numbers announced in the budget of 2002, I secured Government approval to proceed to increase the strength of the force to 12,200 by the end of 2004, which will be achieved.

The Opposition and some other commentators have stated that it is not remotely possible during the remaining lifetime of this Government to recruit in sufficient numbers to increase the strength of the force to 14,000, which is not the case. The logistics of such a major recruitment and training campaign are formidable but these challenges can and will be overcome. I will explain how it will be done. First, the Garda Commissioner will temporarily move the majority of in-service training programmes out of Templemore Garda College to a new location.