Gardaí urged to use recruitment process to fill skills gap and reflect diversity in society
The report by the Garda Inspectorate is also expected to call on the authorities to recruit skilled police officers from other countries and expert civilian professionals.
It will also highlight the need to set up a proper human resource computer database that can identify the skills that gardaí have.
It is just one of a number of IT changes the inspectorate has recommended.
It follows on from its Crime Investigation report in November 2014, which called for the entire Pulse computer system to be replaced and the creation of new systems.
This led to the setting up by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald of an interagency committee which has identified what IT changes are required and in what order.
The inspectorate’s report is expected to call on the Garda Síochána to examine what skills are needed for the organisation and to make sure they are recruiting those people or hiring them in direct.
The latter could include police officers from other jurisdictions or civilian professionals, with certain skills.
As it stands, the force does not have a system for recruiting people directly as gardaí.
Civilians have been hired as civilian staff in certain areas, including forensic accountants in the Criminal Assets Bureau and statisticians for the Garda Analysis Service.
Experts have identified the recruitment process as a key way of filling skill gaps in the force.
It is thought that in the region of 24,000 people applied during the current recruitment process, which started at the end of 2014.
A total of 550 gardaí are being recruited — 295 of which have graduated and are in police stations.
A further 600 are due to the recruited next year, which will necessitate a fresh recruitment process.
Experts and garda sources have said this provides an opportunity, not just to fill skills, but to make the force representative of the demographic make-up of the country.
“There has been no recruitment for so long [since 2009] that there has been no chance to recruit people with these criteria in mind,” said one source.
He said gardaí tend to have “generic skills” in terms of academic qualifications and tend to be from the same general background.
“There has been no change to the demographic make-up of the force,” said the source.
“We need a service that looks like the community it polices. CSO figures indicate 12% of the population is from a diverse background, but the force is narrow in terms of diversity.”
He added: “Now there is a real opportunity to bring people in from communities that have a significant presence here – Poland, Latvian, Romanian, and from the Muslim community.”
A Garda management source agreed: “Do we want a service that represents the community? Absolutely.”
The report by the Garda Inspectorate will also call for an overhaul of the force’s HR computer system.
The HR database cannot identify what skills members have — say in languages or computers — hampering the ability of management to use and deploy its talents effectively.
This was confirmed in the Dáil this week after Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Niall Collins asked for the number of gardaí who could speak specific foreign languages.
To which Ms Fitzgerald replied: “I have been informed by the Garda Commissioner that the information requested with regard to the number of gardaí that can speak the languages in question is not retained by An Garda Síochána.”
