Written answers
Thursday, 15 May 2025
Department of Justice and Equality
An Garda Síochána
Michael Cahill (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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147. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality for an update on his work on recruitment to An Garda Síochána. [24781/25]
Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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It is my first priority as Minister for Justice to get more Gardaí on our streets through increased recruitment.
The Garda Vote in Budget 2025 saw unprecedented funding of over €2.48 billion for this year, a 27% increase since 2020 which is supporting the continued recruitment of Garda members and staff.
The Programme for Government commits to recruiting 5,000 Gardaí over five years. The Garda workforce is currently at its highest ever level, now over 18,200 people, comprising 14,257 members, 3,670 staff and 316 reserves.
A number of initiatives have already been taken to boost recruitment and retention including
- A Recruitment and Training Capacity Group has been established to support the achievement of the increased recruitment.
- The training allowance has been increased to €354 per week.
- The age of entry has also been increased from 35 to 50 and,
- The mandatory retirement age has been increased to 62.
For the fourth year running, a Garda recruitment competition took place in 2025. I am delighted to note that just under 6,800 applications were received.
I was very pleased to see that 201 trainees entered Templemore on 10 March this year. This follows the attestation of 149 Gardaí on 7 March 2025, and these Gardaí have now been allocated to stations around the country.
I am informed that a second recruitment campaign is expected to be held later in 2025, and that a total of four Garda Trainee intakes are planned to commence training in the Garda College during 2025.
Along with recruiting 5,000 full Garda members over five years, we also want to increase the number of Garda Reserves and Garda staff.
The most recent competition for the Garda Reserve in 2024 attracted approximately 1,800 applications. There is a reformed training programme with training modules both online and in-person and the first cohort of 19 Garda Reserve trainees entered Templemore in recent weeks. The second intake of approximately 70 candidates is due to enter the College later this month.
I would like to add that the civilianisation process, where Garda staff work alongside Garda members to carry out vital roles in the organisation, has allowed 900 highly trained Gardaí to be freed up for frontline policing duties. In Kerry for example, there has been a 14% increase in the Garda staff assigned to the Kerry Division from 2020 to 2025, with 56 Garda staff assigned at the end of February 2025, compared to 49 in December 2020.
Tony McCormack (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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148. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality for his position on the use of facial recognition technology by An Garda Síochána, particularly in the context of combating serious crime and retail theft; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24663/25]
Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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An Garda Síochána needs modern tools and equipment to protect people from harm and save lives.
The Programme for Government includes a commitment to allow for the use of biometric technologies in certain, very controlled circumstances as a tool to process evidence in serious cases.
Work is well advanced on the drafting of a Bill to amend the Recording Devices Act to provide for retrospective use of biometric technologies, including facial recognition (FRT). The General Scheme of the Recording Devices (Amendment) Bill, published in 2023, provides for the ethical use of FRT in limited circumstances only.
The draft Bill will provide for the sorting and filtering of CCTV or other footage and images through the use of biometrics by AGS. A typical use case would be to find relevant frames of a person suspected of a serious crime in large volumes of video footage.
The Bill will provide for use of FRT, but that use will be subject to regular review and the results will require further examination by a specially trained member of Garda personnel. Garda use of this technology will also be subject to codes of practice which will set out the very high standards of data protection and human rights control required.
This underscores our commitment to ensuring that use in this jurisdiction will mirror best practice from the wide range of EU Member States which are already utilising this technology.
This Bill will not provide for the use of live FRT. However, the Programme for Government commits to introduce live FRT in cases of terrorism, national security, and missing persons, with strict safeguards. This will be considered for inclusion in a subsequent Bill.
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