Radical overhaul of garda recruitment is being considered

Both Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the proposals will be scrutinised after an expert recruitment group reports in the coming weeks.

The minister and the commissioner revealed the plans as they attended the annual conference of the Association of Garda Superintendents in Trim, Co Meath.

Ms McEntee said there needs to be “radical change” when it comes to recruitment which, despite extensive intakes of students in recent years, has struggled to push garda strength much beyond the 14,000 mark.

Mr Harris has said the overall strength needs to be 18,000.

Ms McEntee said they have introduced measures to widen the pool of potential applicants, by increasing the maximum age of entry, extending the retirement age and increasing the allowance for student gardaí.

“We need to look at the college,” she said. 

We need to look at where the training takes place, potentially, if there’s other options in terms of locations, how we can potentially change the process to suit the way in which people are living and working and studying now as well.

“People engage in education in a different way. They have other jobs, they have ways in which they attend college, while at the same time engaging in remote education as well. 

"We need to look at whether or not the college itself could be located elsewhere or are there other areas that people could study. We need to have a step change overall to get us beyond the numbers that we’re at.”

The minister said she would like to see recruitment “reaching 1,000 and beyond every year”.

She said: “That’s what this team will be presenting to me, with options, in a couple of weeks, and I intend to act on that.”

Commissioner Harris said he couldn’t see Templemore closing, but that “other training establishments” could be set up around the country, to provide the necessary training in areas like public order, firearms and self-defence.

He said academic studies could possibly be done remotely with the applied learning taking place in garda stations and in training centres: 

It might be that, in addition to Templemore, we have other training establishments. 

Mr Harris said another possibility is direct recruitment of specialists: “If you look at some of the other areas now that we’re engaged in, particularly in around cyber, that’s a particular set of skills, and it might be the case then that we try to recruit for that.”

He said it could be similar to the Criminal Assets Bureau model, where civilians are hired directly as forensic accountants.

Responding to comments at the conference that superintendents were “losing their links” with communities under the new Operating Policing Model, Mr Harris said he “rejected” this criticism.