15,000 people applied to join Gardaí last week

MORE than 15,000 people applied to join the Gardaí last week despite a ban on recruitment to the force.

Warning that a failure to recruit additional members over the next five years would be “very detrimental”, Garda Commissioner, Fachtna Murphy, said large numbers of gardaí could be deployed to frontline policing if the Government lifted the embargo on recruiting civilian staff.

Mr Murphy told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee the number of civilian vacancies in the force was 270. “I believe a substantial number of additional gardaí could be freed for operational duties if these gaps could be filled.

“In many areas, particularly the smaller Garda stations around the country, the work associated with these vacancies must be carried out by gardaí in the absence of sufficient civilian staff to provide the necessary cover.”

The current strength of the force is 14,670, of which 2,113 are civilian staff – up from 1,166 at the end of 2005.

However, Mr Murphy said he was committed to lowering the ratio of civilian staff to sworn members from 1:7 towards international norms of 1:3 or 1:4.

Mr Murphy said over 5,000 had applied in one weekend after advertisements were recently placed for new Garda trainees. That figure had since risen to more than 15,000. It is expected at least 100 will be admitted for training.

Comptroller & Auditor General John Buckley said that 144 gardaí had been released from administrative duties between 2005 and 2009 – a figure he said was “considerably less” than envisaged.

However, the commissioner said civilianisation did not necessarily imply that civilian staff directly replaced gardaí in full-time posts. “Rather than putting gardaí back on the street, we were ensuring that gardaí were not taken off the street to fill these important roles.”

He also revealed that:

* 50 of the 557 members of the Garda Reserve had since become full-time members of the force.

* 22 officers would be appointed to superintendent rank shortly.

* 70 Garda cars will have over 300,000km on their odometer by the end of the year – the level above which they are no longer considered safe to drive.

* 1,850 vehicles of the total fleet of 2,812 are less than four years old.