Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. The Garda Reserve was launched by Senator McDowell, the then Minister, with a view to bolstering policing in the Republic. The intention, we were told at the time, was that unpaid reservists could aid full-time Garda members in carrying out their duties and, in some cases, free them up from the most basic of tasks, thus helping to boost front-line policing.

Like other Senators, I acknowledge that Senator McDowell has raised this very important matter on a number of occasions in this House. The concept of a police reserve has worked well in other countries, for example, in the context of aiding policing at major events, but it has been confirmed today that the numbers have fallen below 400 and that recruitment, confirmed by the Minister will not open until the end of this year.

It has already been stated that visibility has always been one of the key principles of policing anywhere in the world. Like other Senators, I am regularly told by many people that we need gardaí back on the streets and walking around in our communities. The Garda Reserve could have a crucial role to play in providing visibility.

We have an excellent community garda in my area of Kildare. Our local community garda, Sean O'Mahoney, is part of every community event in the area offering advice and support and bringing the Garda to the community in the way that the people I mentioned previously want to see gardaí in their communities. Unfortunately, for all of us in the area in which I live, there is only one Garda O'Mahoney. As previous speakers indicated, that is why we need to do more about recruitment and retention of the Garda Reserve.

Members of the Garda Reserve could assist community gardaí and offer further links from our communities to Garda services. They could be the ones walking our streets providing the visibility that so many people are seeking. They could be the ones our community gardaí with community events and expanding the social offerings in all of our communities. Having somebody at a community meeting who can give the security advice and link in with traffic police and Civil Defence is crucial in promoting our communities and ensuring that we have integration and social cohesion in all of them.

Other Senators used the opportunity - it would be remiss of me not to do so as well - to again put out a call for additional gardaí in the areas in which they live. I live in south Kildare, and I echo that call for the reasons I have already mentioned and for a number of others. According to the recent census, the population of Kildare is 247,774. We are now part of the Laois-Offaly area, the population of which is 175,027, or some 72,000 less than Kildare, yet Kildare still has one of the lowest Garda numbers per head of population in the country. It is time to redistribute the gardaí we have to reflect the growth in County Kildare's population.

From the reply to a parliamentary question tabled by my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Sherlock, we learned that only one probationary garda had been allocated to Athy Garda station in eight years. This may have something to do with the definition of a training station, but it needs to change. In total, Kildare received 177 out of a national total of 4,029, of which the Athy station, as I have already mentioned, received one. The fourth largest county by population in Ireland is receiving less than 5% of the probationary gardaí in this country. The Minister of State will tell me in that this is a matter for the Garda Commissioner but I ask the Minister of State to raise it with him again as a matter of urgency.

The Acting Chairperson, Senator Keogan, will understand why somebody from County Kildare would welcome more Garda reservists. The gardaí we have, as I have always said in this House, do a magnificent job. As I have also always said, they are stretched beyond their limits. Something needs to change in my county as a matter of urgency in order to reflect the increase in population there. The Garda Reserve should play a part in that. Recruitment and retention are part of that. As has already been said, this is an issue that we also have with the Defence Forces. We cannot allow it to obstruct the growth in Garda Reserve numbers.

I support the call that before we start recruitment, we need to know why the Garda Reserve has reduced from a 1,500 or 2,000 high to less than 400 before we start asking people to join again. The collapse in volunteerism mentioned by Senator McDowell is a problem that I and the Minister of State come across every day in our communities. We cannot let that be the obstacle to the appointment of Garda reservists. What we need and what we all are calling for is more gardaí on the beat. The Garda reservists gave a role to play in that. That is an issue that the Government should take on. Recruitment should happen as quickly as possible, but we also need to know why the numbers have dropped so drastically from the high in 2015 to where we are today.

The Labour Party supports the call, welcomes the debate and supports the Garda in everything it does in the community, but there is a need for more community-based gardaí. There is also a need for reservists to support those community gardaí on the beat once again.