With An Garda Síochána unlikely to hit its recruitment targets, the President of the Garda Representatives Association (GRA) has said the organisation faces a raft of resignations from 2026.
The Policing Authority - an independent statutory body - has warned that the Gardaí are unlikely to hit recruitment targets of 5,000 more officers under its current recruitment policy. This is despite the targets being set out in the recent Programme for Government.
The warning was given to the Minister for Justice in a letter earlier this year that was released to The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act. The letter also raises issues such as insufficient overtime budget and an over-reliance on complex computer systems as being issues for serving officers.
Garda warnings
Mark O’Meara, President of the GRA, spoke to The Pat Kenny Show about having raised recruitment issues with officials before.
“We’ve been beating this drum for some time now and, unfortunately, it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
“One of our major concerns in the last 12 months is the amount of resignations that we envision to take place from April of next year.”
Mr. O’Meara says that he has raised this concern previously, but “it was met with silence and it was something that they didn’t believe was going to happen.”
The GRA believe that complex computer systems have taken Gardaí away from front-line policing, saying they are “tied up in knots behind the screen.”
He accepts that “we’re at a time where accountability is very important to every concern” but he believes that this has resulted in “statistical-led policing.”
Mr O'Meara rocessing petty crimes is now becoming a labour intensive issue, as officers “upload and download vast amounts of information into a system for statistical purposes” which can take "two or three hours."
He believes “the public don’t see the benefit of this statistical policing, they don’t see boots on the ground - in fact, they see quite the opposite as a result of it.”
When asked about attracting new members to the force, Mr.O’Meara noted that it’s not just recruiting that is a problem but “it’s also the retention of our [current] members.”
“We are a unique body, An Garda Síochána, and we need to be remunerated for that accordingly.”
