Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-28
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

First of all, the Government is absolutely clear on the need to deal robustly and very firmly with antisocial behaviour. An investigation is under way and that restricts what I could say but we are very conscious of the very grave consequences that can arise from antisocial and unacceptable behaviour by people, the degree to which communities are under pressure, and the degree of anger out there in communities at the perception or sense that certain people can ignore the law. We do need to acknowledge that An Garda Síochána is bringing criminals to justice and to account very significantly in terms of the gangland scene in general but also in terms of many other crimes within communities.
The key issue for us in the post-Covid period has been visibility. The Government has a policy of very high visibility and the new Commissioner, Justin Kelly, is equally of that view. The position is improving significantly in terms of the numbers coming out of Templemore. I attended a graduation ceremony in Templemore just before Christmas. Huge and record numbers came out, to be followed up by even higher numbers going in. It is not true to say that people will not be able to go onto the streets straight away. I am informed by the Minister that they will. Some 170 are coming out of Templemore next week. They will be on the streets. I have seen it in different parts of the country. The idea has been to allocate significant numbers to given communities. Those coming out next week will be allocated to the communities the Deputy has referenced.
I accept the anger in such communities and it does work where you have high-visibility policing. The recruitment and retention is well under way. There is a Garda budget of about €2.74 billion in 2026. An extra 1,000 new gardaí will come on stream, with a doubling of the Garda Reserve as well, to over 600. We ran two recruitment campaigns in 2025. There is a steady pipeline of new recruits. Over 11,000 applications to join An Garda Síochána were received last year. We had 194 gardaí attested in November. In 2025, we had around 617 newly attested gardaí. Some 223 trainees entered Templemore in November, which is the largest intake at Templemore since 2014. The total number of trainees to enter Templemore is close to 800, the largest since 2018.
We now have a total of 14,462 gardaí across the State and we are going to continue that level and pace of recruitment on an ongoing basis and for the duration of this Government. The funding will be provided to enable that to happen. The Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, has already had substantial discussions with the Commissioner in regard to the allocation of those resources to improve Garda visibility across our country but particularly in areas where antisocial behaviour is strongest, and also in our city and town centres, where there has been a lot of activity around drug trafficking-----

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-28