Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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63. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will begin a new recruitment process for An Garda Síochána in 2016; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18335/16]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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This Government is committed to ensuring a strong and visible police presence throughout the country in order to maintain and strengthen community engagement, provide reassurance to citizens and deter crime.

As the Deputy will be aware, when the financial crisis hit, the Government of the time introduced a moratorium on recruitment and the four year National Recovery Plan, published in 2010, envisaged a steady reduction in Garda numbers. Thankfully, in a recovering economy, we were able to launch a recruitment campaign and reopen the Garda College in September 2014. Since then a total of 851 Garda trainees have been recruited with a further 300 planned to be recruited during the remainder of this year. So far 463 of the new Garda trainees have attested as members of An Garda Síochána and have been assigned to mainstream uniform duties nationwide. Another 76 will attest on the 7 July with 150 more to attest in November.

The Programme for Government, "A Programme for a Partnership Government" commits tocontinuing the ongoing accelerated Garda recruitment programme with a view to increasing Garda numbers to 15,000. Taking account of projected retirements, the current rate of recruitment will bring Garda numbers to around the 13,000 mark this year. We must, I believe, endeavour to make more rapid progress than this to reach our target of 15,000 and I am engaging with my colleague, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, in relation to increasing the planned annual intake this year and in coming years .

In accelerating recruitment it is, of course, essential to ensure that An Garda Síochána has the capacity to train larger numbers without any diminution in the quality of its training programme, and to provide appropriate supervision and support to newly qualified Gardaí to ensure that victims, and the public generally, are well served by their policing service. My officials are also engaging with Garda management as a matter of priority in relation to the preparation of a recruitment plan for the next five years that will deliver increased numbers of Gardaí without any compromise on the quality of those recruited or the training programme. I expect to be in position to bring my proposals in this regard to Government before the Summer.

In order to fulfil the recruitment commitment for 2016 and beyond a new recruitment campaign was launched in last November. That campaign, which closed on 6 January, attracted strong interest with in the region of 16,500 applications received by the Public Appointments Service which is organising the competition on behalf of the Garda Commissioner. There are no plans to announce a new recruitment campaign at present, however, the timing of a new campaign will be kept under review in the context of fulfilling the commitment to ongoing accelerated recruitment in the Programme for Government.