Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)
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Question 56: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the amount spent on renovating Templemore Garda College, County Tipperary, in each of the past five years; the percentage capacity at which the training college will be running for each of the next three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31513/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I have requested details from the Garda Authorities in relation to the amount spent on renovating Templemore Garda College and I will be in contact with the Deputy when the information is to hand.

The Garda Training College continues to provide an excellent and essential service to An Garda Síochána and will do so into the future.

There are currently a total of 600 Garda students in training and approximately 900 student Gardaí will have become attested to the force throughout the course of 2009. The Public Service recruitment moratorium does not apply to the Garda Reserve and recruitment to the Reserve is ongoing. There are currently 151 reserve members at various stages of training and these trainees attend the Garda Training College as part of their training programme.

In the past few years the accelerated recruitment campaign resulted in additional demands on the capacity of the training college. In response to on-going training requirements, some in-service Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Courses for full-time members of the Force were transferred to an outsourced centre at the Abbey Court Hotel, Nenagh in 2005. This allowed the Garda College to concentrate on recruitment training. In recent months the outsourcing has discontinued and CPD training is now taking place in the Garda College with a consequent reduction in associated training costs. Members of An Garda Síochána can avail of CPD courses in areas such as Crime Prevention, Tactical Training, Forensic Collision and Cultural Diversity issues.

The following table shows the number of course places available to Gardaí over the past 5 years:

The situation in relation to recruitment and training will continue to be monitored to ensure that optimum use is made of the resources available at the Garda Training College.