An Garda Síochána: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-13 ============================================================ Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit anocht. Very few things have been said here with which I could possibly disagree. The motion is one I firmly support, but I want to bring some reality to some of the political debate we have had because we now have, as was said here, a massive growth in population. When I was made Minister for justice in 2002, there were 3.9 million people in Ireland. There is now 5.46 million. The number of gardaí for each citizen was one for 330 when I became Minister and it is now one for 378, so we are slipping. It is interesting to note that the number of gardaí was 14,412 in 2008, the year after I left office having reformed Templemore and increased dramatically the facilities there to increase recruitment and training, but 18 years later it is 14,425. Why has that happened? There are serious questions to be asked about this. Our population has gone up and successive political parties have promised that they are going to recruit 3,000 or 5,000 extra gardaí. These promises have been made but none of them have been delivered on. It is good to hear a target of 15,000 for this year but if you look at the number of retirements versus the number of intakes, and four intakes this year of 250 each is the target, that is a gross increase of 1,000, which will probably translate into a net increase of maybe 700 or 800 at the most. We are not keeping up with our responsibilities. This is not only an issue that affects An Garda Síochána. It also affects the whole question of retaining people in the service of the State. Our Army is supposed to have a strength of 11,800. It is approximately 7,800 now. The Civil Defence's membership has gone down by roughly half, from approximately 5,000 to 2,500. There are huge problems in the State in keeping its security forces and the people who volunteer and serve our State in station and working hard. I will not run down what has been achieved, but the figures per head of the population and the amount of members who are available across the country have increased by tiny numbers. I saw recently a Member of Dáil Éireann welcoming the addition of one garda to his local area. That shows how difficult it is to increase the number of gardaí. In addition to the number of full-time members of An Garda Síochána, when we introduced the Garda Síochána legislation in my term of office we recruited reservists. The number of reservists, in 2014, was 1,124. Today, it is one less than 300. There are issues there. Plans to recruit more were announced but the results are not there on the ground. I strongly believe An Garda Síochána needs to be invested in. Its membership needs to be expanded. I have no doubt that keeping people, by raising the retirement age and the recruitment age, is a good idea, but all of these things can only be translated into real change if they are driven from the top. They were driven from the top when I was Minister and I will tell the Minister of State why. In the first week of my appointment, one civil servant said to me that if I delivered on the commitment, which we did deliver on, to increase the number of gardaí by 2,000, there would be an increase in reported crime. I always remember being told that across the desk. I said that kind of mentality is the wrong mentality. We needed people who were going to drive the increase with vigour, people who brought the reserve up to nearly 1,200 and people who, over two years or three years, increased the number of An Garda Síochána, as I said, from 11,800 to 14,200. That required effort. It required building a new centre in Templemore. That was done by Duggan contractors in 13 months because then Secretary General of my Department, Mr. Sean Alyward, put his back behind that project. I am saying now that talk is good enough, promises are good enough and targets are good enough. I am not against any of those things, but I am saying this: delivery is essential. An Garda Síochána is slipping in terms of the number of gardaí compared with the number of people in the population. On the distribution of gardaí, although it is welcome to see them on public streets and the like, and I fully endorse the policy of getting gardaí outside desks and civilianising the non-essential functions, the simple fact is that the people have been made commitment after commitment that An Garda Síochána's strength would increase each of those commitments has failed. That is not due to a lack of political desire but the chronic problem that afflicts this State, which is the failure of the Executive to implement the policies governments are elected to put in place. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-13/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-13