Garda Recruitment - The Waiting Room

P.O.S

Your right Ruairi,I don't agree with everything GRA says but at the end of the day they represent every rank and file Garda and have representatives/delegates at their annual conference from all over the country.

C-J

Fully agree, the gras sole purpose is to represent the members on the ground. Members opinions are regularly sought, the gra aren't plucking grievances out of the air. They have done trojan work highlighting the need for recruitment and I respect that entirely.

tweedledee

It really gets me going when people say, look at Sydney, look at China etc etc. Shatter did it a few days ago when he held up Toronto as the reason to close Stations and cut numbers.Grrrrrrrrrrr and evrybody goes ooooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!
My God comparing Toronto to Ireland is like comparing eggs to Mars bars.
Police numbers shouldn't depend entirely on population. It depends on crime rates, demographics, unemployment, social problems, wealth etc etc. FFS Toronto is officially the safest city in North America!!!! Mainly because it has very little unemployment, vast wealth, it's one of the richest cities in North America.Almost everybody in Toronto has a job hence the low crime rates.The residents attitudes are different to here.Most of the residents live within an hour of the work place,its a very small area compared to the open spaces here. Here its me-fein and lots of doom and gloom. Bad news everyday on the tele, on news its all depressing here and we have MASSIVE unemployment, vast estates all over the country with nobody working, traditionally crime rates soar with high unemployment. Bad feelings, depressing news creates resentment and crime rates increase.

tweedledee

The Gardai have a very difficult job to do here.They are unarmed and lots of Irish people have absolutely no respect for law and order and even less for authority. We have a very strong drinking culture here but in Toronto they don't. Alcohol is very limited with regard to where you can buy it. They are extremely strict with anything to do with booze, zero tolerance!!!!! Here you can buy booze everywhere and anywhere. Sorry for the rant but it really annoys me when people start this comparing jizz.If people are going to compare, do like with like. Look at Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, Philli, Greater Manchester, Greater Glasgow, Greater London Area etc etc.......... again sorry for the rant,,we need more police here fullstop.

thekopend

there are 5,710 uniformed police in torronto, and id bet the "3" stations that open by night are the size of garda hedquarters!

podsieboy

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/1107/1224307168306.html
the defence forces got it...looks lik we cud be waitng a while surely they wont get two exemptions in a year??

eroo

podsieboy wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/1107/1224307168306.html
the defence forces got it...looks lik we cud be waitng a while surely they wont get two exemptions in a year??

Absolutely ridiculous. I have the utmost respect for the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps.. but I am amazed that Alan Shatter feels the need to ensure the Defence Forces can send peacekeeping troops abroad, as opposed to ensuring peace can be kept here at home by AGS. He feels the need to not let numbers drop in the DF, despite they only being deployed on 1 mission.

Whereas the country has a police force that is extremely under resourced and is getting to a point where it is struggling to carry out it's role efficiently due to a lack of manpower. Instead of addressing this issue, manpower and resources are actually being cut.

Zambia

Ruairi88 wrote: »

Fully agree Zambia, however police force look at demographics. The majority of Victoria's population or 4,077,036 whatever way you want to look at it is in the city of Melbourne! That leave's roughly 1.5 million people scattered around the state. This is opposed to Ireland's 3 million scattered minus the 1.5 million centered in Dublin. And landmass is irrelevant! What is the point in policing land where no people exists. That is why Victoria can afford to have around the same number as the Gardaí have.

Agreed.

I would like to ask the question how is the state trying to free up Police. For example greater use of Penalty notices.

P.O.S

530 Defence personnel recruited this year,more to come next year and Shatter can't even bring in a few recruits to keep Garda college ticking over...absolute madness

Delancey

Utterly unbelievable that Shatter fights for a Defence Forces exemption but not one for AGS.
With respect I cannot see how sending troops overseas does a thing for the people back here - I know funds are limited but think what little is available should be spent at home and not abroad.

I think the vast majority of people would rather more Garda recruitment as opposed to Defence Forces recruitment.

Outrageous, but I think it may provide a clue as to the minister's view and attitude towards AGS......not a happy conclusion to draw.

tweedledee

Why is everybody so surprised with the governments actions???? Irish government are more concerned about their image abroad and looking good to the International press than they are about their own citizens.
This government dosn't give a toss what you,me or any other Irish person thinks, its all about keeping the UN and EU happy.:mad:
And all the mugs thought there was going to be change with the "new" regime.

2wsxcde3

3 more vacancies today in the guards....:rolleyes:

kerry4sam

2wsxcde3 wrote: »

3 more vacancies today in the guards....:rolleyes:

I think this flippant comment belongs in this thread over in AfterHours

Ruairi88

eroo wrote: »

Absolutely ridiculous. I have the utmost respect for the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps.. but I am amazed that Alan Shatter feels the need to ensure the Defence Forces can send peacekeeping troops abroad, as opposed to ensuring peace can be kept here at home by AGS. He feels the need to not let numbers drop in the DF, despite they only being deployed on 1 mission.

Whereas the country has a police force that is extremely under resourced and is getting to a point where it is struggling to carry out it's role efficiently due to a lack of manpower. Instead of addressing this issue, manpower and resources are actually being cut.

Hey we look good in front of the world media! Forget about Austerity and the enormous social cost to this state, it's all about looking good! When the government can justify pumping another 700million+ into banks this week and an 83 year old pensioner lies on a trolley in A+E in Galway for 5 days I actually wonder. For army to take precedence over Gardaí is nothing short of a Disgrace!

podsieboy

lads i only flicked on to the end of the frontline but think i heard them saying something about garda recruitment just waiting for it to come up on rte player.

2wsxcde3

Dude what you talking about. Just looked at it there on player now and they didn't mention anything about the guards or recruitment.

itsallgood

Ruairi88 wrote: »

Hey we look good in front of the world media! Forget about Austerity and the enormous social cost to this state, it's all about looking good! When the government can justify pumping another 700million+ into banks this week and an 83 year old pensioner lies on a trolley in A+E in Galway for 5 days I actually wonder. For army to take precedence over Gardaí is nothing short of a Disgrace!

The army never stopped recruiting. It didn't fall under the moratorium. Sure, they cut back on recruits but every year since the moratorium we have had this discussion. It comes down to some stupid legislation or something with regards to being a member state of the EU/UN.
It means nothing with regards to garda recruitment just the fact that Shatter is full of crap and we again have been screwed by another incompetent liar for a Justice Minister.
He told me to my face before the election that he will personally prevent any cuts on recruitment and then he agrees to cut serving numbers. The complete opposite of what he said.

King Ludvig

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/1107/1224307168306.html

podsieboy

sorry guys watched it again its only at the end when hes talkin to the teacher he says how the gardai as well have the mortorium in place.

Geansai

King Ludvig wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2011/1107/1224307168306.html

Is this not in line with the 4 year recovery plan??

The plan was to reduce defence numbers to 10,300 and garda numbers to 13,000 by 2014.
If defence force numbers are now at 9,500, then this would be right.
I fail to see the surprise in this.

Also, in general, Gardai tend to stay in the force for the full term of 30 years. Defence force personnel tend to leave the force much earlier. Therefore, just to keep the numbers constant, more recruitment is needed.
The article clearly states that the numbers fell from 10,500 to 9,500, and recruitment is needed just to keep the numbers at this level. whereas garda numbers are only now beginning to fall.

tweedledee

Exactly, correct.

C-J

Am i the only one of the panel thats feeling encouraged by the retirement figures?!

2wsxcde3

Geansai wrote: »

Is this not in line with the 4 year recovery plan??

The plan was to reduce defence numbers to 10,300 and garda numbers to 13,000 by 2014.
If defence force numbers are now at 9,500, then this would be right.
I fail to see the surprise in this.

Also, in general, Gardai tend to stay in the force for the full term of 30 years. Defence force personnel tend to leave the force much earlier. Therefore, just to keep the numbers constant, more recruitment is needed.
The article clearly states that the numbers fell from 10,500 to 9,500, and recruitment is needed just to keep the numbers at this level. whereas garda numbers are only now beginning to fall.

Thats an interesting point that goes back to something someone said a few months ago. Can't remember who said it but they were asking would it be likely that the gov would let numbers drop below 13,000 before they recruit again. Or would they recruit before numbers hit this number in anticipation of the target number of 13,000 being met.
It would seem (going by the way the defense forces have been handled) that it's not inconceivable that the gov would let garda number drop to 12,500 or so before beginning recruitment. In some ways it makes sense to wait for a bigger number of recruits to go in rather than drip feeding them in 50 or so at a time. The reason being that all those training guards that they sent out of templemore college back to ordinary stations would have to come back for a relatively small number of recruits. It would make more sense financially to wait till you could take in 200-300 or so in the one go or maybe more. Is this whats happening with the defense forces at the moment??

I guess they could take in this number of recruits of whose on the panel (~250) and either let them do the old course or make them do some sort of pre-training course to bring them up to speed with what would be the new syllabus. But they'd hardly take in so many next year - it'd be more likley to bring them all in 2 or 3 years time. They have taken in classes of 250 or so in the one go haven't they before?

C-J

Under the new syllabus there are no such thing as training stations. You are in the college for 8 months, attested and placed in your station then

klong

itsallgood wrote: »

The army never stopped recruiting. It didn't fall under the moratorium. Sure, they cut back on recruits but every year since the moratorium we have had this discussion. It comes down to some stupid legislation or something with regards to being a member state of the EU/UN.
It means nothing with regards to garda recruitment just the fact that Shatter is full of crap and we again have been screwed by another incompetent liar for a Justice Minister.
He told me to my face before the election that he will personally prevent any cuts on recruitment and then he agrees to cut serving numbers. The complete opposite of what he said.

Re the bold:

Not true. Especially the second- no such thing as legislation detailing what DF numbers must be.

www.military.ie

The Defence Forces are still NOT accepting any NEW applications for general service in the Defence Forces.

Defence Forces took the pain when the going was good. Pre- boom DF numbers are far lower than they are now and barracks have been closed.

C-J

So a clearer picture should be visible by thursday!!

Devil08

Hi guys, took a break from this for a few months but I see nothings changed! the same old arguements and bickering going on! I was hoping to come back and see some good news but looks like nothing has progressed one bit over the past 2/3 years. Were still all left in the dark. I cant see anything changing until serious pressure is put on the government. Protests are needed, the public need to be heard and we need to be heard. Coming here and venting our frustrations obviously has done no good over the past few years. I dont think it would be too hard to get a protest going. Im sure the GRA would be happy to get involved . Saving money is more important to the government than reducing crime. Thats the sad fact. They dont care if people houses are being broken into, peoples lives are becoming increasingly at danger, and the crime rates are through the roof. I think this is just something they have accepted. Until we are at the very top of the crime rates table in europe I cant see them doing anything about it. Unless of course serious pressure is put on them, no pressure at all has been put them so far. none.

Geri Boyle

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Thank you.

gardapa

C-J wrote: »

So a clearer picture should be visible by thursday!!

Whats on Thursday??

C-J

gardapa wrote: »

Whats on Thursday??

the public sector cuts will be announced thursday. Not sure if retirements before february will be calculated by then but def before end of the month. Either way we'll either know more or know exactly the same as we know now