Tony McLoughlin (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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237. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if the new Gardai Síochána recruitment campaign, which will be announced soon, will be open to members of the general public, or if it will only be selected from a panel of unsuccessful candidates from other previous Garda Síochána recruitment campaigns; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19448/15]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Public Appointments Service (PAS) is managing the recruitment process for the Garda Commissioner and I have no direct involvement in the matter. I understand, however, that candidates who fail any stage of the process are eliminated from the competition.

The position in relation to the current competition is as follows: Following receipt of 24,000 applications, PAS invited candidates to complete Stage 1 of the competition which consisted of an assessment questionnaire and reasoning tests which were undertaken on-line. I understand that around 18,000 candidates completed this stage and fewer than 13,000 candidates reached a satisfactory standard. Those who did achieve a satisfactory standard were placed in three bands determined by their overall scores. 5,000 candidates (i.e. those in Band 1) were invited to take a subsequent series of tests and of that number, just over 3,000 were successful. To date the top 2,000 approximately from that group have been invited to supervised assessments and interviews. These interviews are ongoing and the details of successful candidates are forwarded to the Garda Commissioner. Those remaining from Band 1 will be brought forward for further assessment and depending on the Commissioner’s recruitment needs, PAS will then move to those in Band 2 and possibly Band 3, if necessary.

While it is the Government's intention that there will be ongoing seamless recruitment to the force, there are no plans at present for a new recruitment campaign.