Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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Question 19: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform when the promised additional Gardaí will be recruited in regard to his announcement of 19 December 2006; when the extra Garda Reserve members will be in place; when the proposed civilianisation of Garda posts will take place; the numbers involved in respect of each; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12913/07]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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On 19 December, 2006, as part of a package of anti-crime measures, the Government approved the continuation of the existing Garda recruitment programme to achieve a total Garda strength of 15,000. The accelerated intake of approximately 1,100 new recruits per annum into the Garda College will continue until this target is reached.

The Garda Commissioner is proceeding with the recruitment and training of 1,500 members of the Garda reserve. I am informed by the Garda authorities that there are intakes to the Garda College every 4-6 weeks. The total personnel strength of the Garda Reserve including trainees was 123 at 29th March 2007.

The first group of 36 Garda Reserves completed their training and were formally attested as members of An Garda Síochána on 15th December 2006. They have been deployed in Dublin (Store Street and Pearse Street), Cork (Anglesea Street), Galway City and Sligo.

The second group commenced training in the Garda College at Templemore on 20th January 2007. This group consists of 52 Garda Reserve trainees who will be deployed in Blanchardstown, Santry, Dun Laoghaire, Tallaght, Limerick, Clare, Sligo, Galway and Kerry. It is expected that they will be attested in May.

Training for the third group of 35 Reserve trainees commenced on 3rd March 2007 and it is expected that they will be attested in June. It is also expected that further groups of Reserve trainees will commence training on a monthly basis. I am informed by the Garda authorities that the next intake will be on 28th April 2007. Further interviews were held in recent weeks for applicants throughout the country and interviews have now taken place in each of the 26 counties. Applicants will continue to be interviewed on a rolling basis over the coming weeks and months. By June of this year three groups of trainees will have been attested, i.e. 123 Reserve members.

With regard to civilianisation, I am informed that there is currently a campaign underway to recruit 300 civilian support staff into An Garda Síochána to release Gardaí who are employed on clerical duties to operational duties. This process is well underway and interviews are currently being held by the Public Appointments Service to recruit these Clerical Officers. Since the beginning of 2007, 93 Clerical Officers have been appointed to An Garda Síochána. A further 46 have been offered a Clerical Officer post. Preparations are at an advanced stage to commence the recruitment of a civilian Chief Administration Officer in An Garda Síochána, at a grade equivalent to Deputy Commissioner. An Garda Síochána is also in the process of recruiting senior civilian managers as Head of Media and Public Relations, Directors of Strategy, Human Resources and Information Technology. A dedicated Human Resource Directorate has been established within An Garda Síochána to serve the needs of the 2000 clerical, administrative, professional, technical and industrial civilian staff already working in An Garda Síochána and to promote an extensive programme of civilianisation.

Significant progress is being made on recruitment to a range of key specialised civilian posts, including:

31 posts in the Garda Telecommunications area;

28 staff for the Professional Standards Unit, comprising statisticians, analysts and administrative staff;

10 posts in the new Internal Audit Unit;

14 additional teaching/training posts in the Garda College in Templemore; and

29 posts for the new civilian Crime Analysis Service.

The foregoing is in addition to the establishment of the Garda Informations Services Centre which employs over 160 civilians doing work which was previously done by operational Gardai. The success of the incident reporting and data quality review facilities available at the GISC encouraged the Garda authorities to seek opportunities for the devolution of further tasks to the Centre. One such initiative involves the reporting of the outcome of court cases to the GISC, which allows Gardaí to remain operational following completion of their court attendances. The call-taking function of Garda Traffic Watch has already transferred from six Regional Garda Communication Centres to the GISC. Under a further initiative, the logging of driving licence and insurance particulars, a function formerly carried out by Gardaí and civilian personnel in the Fixed Charge Processing System, is now undertaken at the GISC. All of these initiatives are contributing significantly to the release of Garda resources for visible, frontline policing across our communities. It is proposed to carry out a review of the GISC in the summer of 2007 and the outcome of this evaluation will inform future projects.