Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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101. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the Garda numbers at 31 March 2019 by station and rank. [16939/19]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will appreciate, the Garda Commissioner is responsible for the distribution of personnel and I, as Minister, have no direct role in the matter. Garda management keeps this distribution under review in the context of crime trends and policing priorities to ensure optimum use is made of the resources.

I am informed by the Commissioner that as of the 28 February 2019, the latest date for which information is available, the overall strength of An Garda Síochána was 13,977 with 521 Reserves and 2,590 Civilians.

I can assure the Deputy that 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 to deter crime. 

Since the reopening of the Garda College in September 2014, almost 2,600 recruits have attested as members of An Garda Síochána and have been assigned to mainstream duties nationwide. Garda numbers reached the target of 14,000 by the end of 2018 are on track to reach 15,000 by 2021. 

The Commissioner has this year been provided with an additional €100 million bringing his budget to almost €1.8 billion, which includes provision for the recruitment of up to 800 Gardaí this year. The Commissioner has now informed me that he plans to recruit a total of 600 trainee Gardaí in 2019 and 600 Garda Civilian Staff.  This Garda Staff recruitment will allow the Commissioner to redeploy a further 500 fully trained Gardaí from administrative duties to frontline policing in 2019.

I believe that the injection of this large number of experienced officers into the field, along with the new recruits, will be really beneficial in terms of protecting communities. This and on-going recruitment will clearly provide the Commissioner with the resources needed to deploy increasing numbers of Gardaí to deliver a visible effective and responsive policing service to communities across all Garda Divisions.

The  information requested by the Deputy in relation to the Garda strength of each Division by station and rank, from 2009 to 28 February 2019 as provided by the Garda Commissioner is available on my Department’s website through the following

The figures for 31 March 2019 will be available on the website by the end of April.

For more general information on Garda Facts and Figures please see the following link:

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Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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102. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of outstanding bench warrants by Garda division; and his plans to address this matter. [16940/19]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will appreciate, difficulties in relation to the execution of warrants, including bench warrants, are a long-standing issue for many police forces around the world; notably relating to persons actively seeking to evade detection and where limited identification information might be available to support enforcement.  These difficulties are compounded where the warrant has been outstanding for some years.  However, I am assured that An Garda Síochána execute warrants as expeditiously as possible, giving priority to the execution of warrants relating to serious crimes.

The Deputy will also appreciate that the figure for outstanding bench warrants recorded by PULSE at any given time reflects an accumulation of old bench warrants which has arisen over the years and that therefore the total figure for outstanding bench warrants as shown on PULSE may not be a reliable indicator of the number of 'live' warrants which are actually enforceable.

While it is important to note that an individual can be the subject of multiple bench warrants, I am advised by the Garda authorities that, as of 10 April 2019, there are 37,797 bench warrants outstanding nationally.  The attached table provides a breakdown of bench warrants outstanding by Garda Division. 

*Operation figures from Pulse and are accurate as of 10 April 2019 and liable to change.