Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I raise the possibility of having a debate in this House with the Minister for Justice on the subject of the Garda Reserve. There is, on paper, a strategy for the revitalisation of the reserve over five years from 2021 to 2025. We are already in 2023 and no recruitment has taken place in recent years to the reserve. The result is that the membership of the reserve has fallen from around 1,200 to approximately 300. Many members of the reserve feel they have not been utilised and that there has been a degree of hostility among a minority of ill-informed members of An Garda Síochána to their presence in Garda stations at all.

In Ireland today there is a role for volunteering just as there was in the past with the FCA and the Reserve Defence Forces. There is a role for people to become involved to assist the State. There is a crying need for An Garda Síochána particularly to have friends and allies and roots in communities in both urban and rural Ireland where they do not exist at the moment. I ask the Acting Leader to ask the Minister for Justice to come here to debate the future of the reserve and to outline the Government's policy in relation to revitalising it and giving people an opportunity to assist in the vital work of An Garda Síochána.