An Garda Síochána
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-19
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Matt Carthy (SF), Cavan-Monaghan

The Minister stated he wants to reach 5,000 attestations over the lifetime of the Government. It does not take much deduction to realise that 619 gardaí attesting in the calendar year of 2025 remains way below what is needed in order meet that goal. That number will come as a surprise to many people, especially when they have heard so much about the fact that over 11,000 people applied to join An Garda last year. That points to a crisis. It certainly points to a failure. Despite the welcome increase in the intakes into Templemore, there has to be a recognition the numbers are still nowhere near where they need to be. What is the Government going to do about this? What additional measures are going to be put in place? We have outlined proposals to increase both the training allowance and the number of training places and to encourage gardaí who have left the force to rejoin it. Has the Minister done any of those things?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-19