Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 49: To ask the Minister for Justice and Law Reform the reason the creation of 900 civilian posts within the gardaí has resulted in the release of only 144 Garda personnel for frontline policing duties, as highlighted in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General; the steps he will take to ensure greater use of civilian personnel, as recommended in the recent report of the Garda Inspectorate on Resource Allocation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43012/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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As the Comptroller and Auditor General report acknowledges, increased civilian support for the Garda Síochána does not exclusively take the form of one-for-one replacement of individual Gardaí by civilian staff. Of course, in some instances, civilianisation does indeed enable the direct replacement of Gardaí who are engaged in exclusively clerical, administrative or technical duties by civilian staff. In a great many other cases, however, it allows Gardaí who would otherwise have to devote a substantial part of their working day to performing administrative duties to focus exclusively on front-line policing duties. Civilian staff may also be recruited to perform new or expanded administrative, managerial and professional support roles in the Garda Síochána, for example as crime analysts or IT specialists. This in itself can indirectly free up Gardaí for operational duty.

The report also notes that the recently established Garda Information Services Centre in Castlebar, which is staffed by civilians, has freed up as many as 265 Gardaí on a daily basis, as they no longer have to personally input details of incidents onto PULSE.

It is also the case that some of the additional civilian staff, for example those allocated to the expanded Garda Central Vetting Unit in Thurles, are performing a vital role which would otherwise have had to be undertaken by Gardaí redeployed from operational duty. This also needs to be factored into any calculations.

Of course I want to see the maximum number of Gardaí allocated to frontline operational duties, and I know that the Commissioner fully shares this objective. In that context, it is helpful that the whole time equivalent number of civilians in An Garda Síochána has increased from 1,688 at the end of 2007 to approximately 2,100 at the present time.