Galway is sold short on Garda recruits

The Galway Garda Division has received just nine new recruits since 2012 – and none this year, the Minister for Justice has confirmed.

There were no new recruits assigned to any Garda division between 2012 and 2014 due to a moratorium on recruitment.

But since new recruits starting coming out of Templemore College in 2015, Galway has been left behind in terms of being allocated new Gardaí.

Galway received just four of the 296 Gardaí who graduated in 2014; and was allocated just five of the 393 who came out of Templemore in 2016.

According to figures supplied by Minister Charlie Flanagan, not one of the 292 Garda graduates so far in 2017 have been assigned to Galway.

Garda Chief Superintendent Tom Curley has in the past said that Galway was attracting Gardaí who wish to transfer from other parts of the country.

However, the paltry number of new recruits being allocated to Galway – less than 1% of the total – is a cause for concern for some.

Sinn Féin Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh said Galway should be getting its fair share of new Garda recruits.

He said rural parts of the division, such as Connemara, need additional cover, as do parts of the city, including the Spanish Arch, which Gardaí say they have limited resources to police.

The Galway-based senator said: “You would have to question the system for allocating new recruits nationwide. What the Chief Superintendent Tom Curley has always said at Joint Policing Committee meetings is that if he got new Gardaí, he’d have plenty of work for them. So there is work for more Gardaí in Galway.

“We have to remember that this allocation is in the context of Gardaí in Galway being stretched for numbers, particularly in the summer months. Why is it that Galway hasn’t been allocated any new recruits so far this year?”

For comparison, some 145 were allocated to Dublin this year; eleven new recruits went to Tipperary; nine went to Limerick and 20 to Cork.

Mayo and Clare were the only other Garda Divisions in the country that, like Galway, haven’t got an allocation of new recruits this year. Senator Ó Clochartaigh pointed out that that was a large stretch of the western seaboard without any new recruits.

Minister Flanagan said: “The Government has in place a plan to achieve an overall Garda workforce of 21,000 personnel by 2021 comprising 15,000 Garda members, 2,000 Reserve members and 4,000 civilians. In 2017, funding has been provided for the recruitment of 800 Garda recruits and up to 500 civilians to support the wide-ranging reform plan in train in An Garda Síochána. Funding has also been provided for the recruitment of 300 Garda Reserves.”