BUDGET 2016: Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald wants force to pass 14,000

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said an additional 600 garda recruits next year will bring the strength of the force to more than 13,000 — and said she wanted it to reach 14,000 in the coming years.

And she said there would be a specific budget — to be announced soon — for special operations to target marauding criminal gangs involved in burglaries.

She announced an increase of €89m in the Department of Justice’s current expenditure — some €67m of which goes to An Garda Síochána.

This will allow for the recruitment of 600 people in 2016, which will be in addition to the 550 that have been recruited since September 2014.

“That will certainly bring us up to and beyond 13,000,” Ms Fitzgerald said. “Personally, I’d like to see a force of 14,000 at this stage. I think it is attainable in the next few years.”

Some 300 of the 550 current recruits were attested in three batches this year and are now working in garda stations, while 250 are in the Garda College in Templemore.

Former garda commissioner Martin Callinan set 13,000 as the minimum number required to provide a policing service.

Garda numbers were cut from 14,500 in 2010 to 12,800 by the end of last year, dropping to 12,700 by March 2015.

An estimated 1,500 gardaí are eligible to retire and, on average, some 300-400 garda retire every year.

Garda associations said that, in addition, 200 gardaí are on incentivised career breaks and that another 20 are seconded to the Department of Social Protection.

Ms Fitzgerald said that she would envisage a “similar” level of recruitment to 2016 in the following years.

“The ongoing recruitment of new gardaí is crucial for An Garda Síochána and for the safety of communities throughout Ireland,” she said.

She said 600 was the “optimum” number in Templemore, saying they needed to ensure “proper training and supervision”.

The minister said there would be extra funding for “garda surveillance, special operations and targeted intelligence-led policing”.

She said the funding would provide gardaí with the tools — including high-powered vehicles — and manpower “to tackle the scourge of highly-mobile criminal gangs” particularly those involved in burglaries. She said the specialist vehicles, costing €700,000, would come on stream in the winter months.

Ms Fitzgerald said the budget provided for €33m in technology for the gardaí.

This would update the Pulse system to allow for the monitoring of criminal investigations. She said a capital programme would see €331m spent on IT over six years.

In relation to the murder of Garda Tony Golden in Co Louth on Sunday, Ms Fitzgerald said that she had visited his wife Nicola on Monday night.

“It’s such an appalling event, really there aren’t any words that can capture what has happened,” she said

She said she wanted to convey her condolences in person: “I had an opportunity to meet Nicola and her three young children, such beautiful young children.

“Quite honestly it’s heartbreaking, really heartbreaking, to see what has happened, see a man gunned down on Sunday afternoon out doing the job that gardaí do every day, answering somebody’s cry for help.”