Fears up to 2,000 gardaí will reach retirement eligibility in next five years

Ireland currently has 14,146 sworn gardaí, and some 343 garda recruits are training at the garda college.

Fears that some 2,000 gardaí will reach retirement eligibility in the next five years, intensifying the current recruitment and retention crisis, are now being expressed within the force.

Garda recruitment seriously increased in the 1990s around the time of the murders of journalist Veronica Guerin and Detective Garda Jerry McCabe and the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau in 1996, garda sources said.