Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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664. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when the next Garda recruitment campaign will be undertaken; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38554/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, 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. To make this a reality for all, the Government has in place a plan to achieve an overall Garda workforce of 21,000 personnel by 2021 comprising 15,000 Garda members, 2,000 Reserve members and 4,000 civilians.

This recruitment target is an ambitious one and will require a continuous pipeline of suitable candidates. The most recent recruitment campaign launched by the Public Appointments Service (PAS) on behalf of the Commissioner in May of this year again received a strong response with more than 5,000 applications received. It is expected that successful candidates from this campaign will start to enter the Garda College in the second quarter of 2018.

The precise timing of the next competition is under consideration by the Commissioner in conjunction with PAS and any announcement will be made in due course including on the PAS website (www.publicjobs.ie).