McEntee launches Garda recruitment drive. Is this just lip service?

Yes I'm aware women have babies . I was one myself at one point . A baby not a woman . .

Policing us a 24 hour 7 day a week 365 service that at present is grossly under resourced. Increasing the numbers of people in that service who are likely to be in effective for a large period of time is a poor idea.

Recruitment should reflect that and not the political policy of the day to increase inclusion and diversity in the work place.

You not agreeing with those facts does not make me wrong

No it doesn't.

You’re arguing as though the responsibility increases on all male Gardaí if women take maternity leave. It doesn’t. Even when the Minister took maternity leave, a temporary Minister for Justice was appointed, and according to them -

New figures show that there has only been a marginal increase in the number of female gardaí, with 572 women joining the ranks since 2011.

The latest figures show currently only 3,974 sworn members of An Garda Síochána are female. This compares to 3,402 in 2011. 

In 2010, women made up 24.4% of sworn members of the force, compared to 75.6% who were men. As of 2021, this gender breakdown stood at 27.7% women, to 72.3% men. 

The figures show the number of female officers dropped each year between 2011 and 2015, falling from 3,402 to 3,324. From 2016, numbers began to increase again, gaining an additional 200 women in 2017, and 167 in 2018. The figures for 2021 represent a decrease in the number of women in An Garda Síochána; Nine women left the force between 2020 and 2021.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40733274.html

Who provides the policing service when ladies are out on maternity? Their colleagues in the force of course.

There isn’t any specific percentage I’d like, or that I’d care about for that matter. I’m satisfied the opportunities to become a member of AGS are there for anyone, without discrimination as to their sex, and have been for the last 60 years -

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/our-departments/office-of-corporate-communications/press-releases/2019/july/60th-anniversary-of-women-joining-an-garda-siochana-on-the-10-7-19.html

Why? Because nobody should be deprived of the opportunity to become a member of AGS on the basis of their sex is why, and they haven’t been for the last 60 years. Policing in this country has only improved in that time, as opposed any notions that permitting women to become members of AGS has any negative impact on policing.

Heard about this latest recruitment drive on the news the other day, but the primary message seemed to be that they wanted to encourage more "diversity" in applications than anything else.

As others have said here, the problems with policing and justice are a lot deeper and structural (retirements, level of admin work, poor prioritisation and strategic decisions, ridiculously light sentencing, no prison spaces etc) and ultimately this pathetic soft-touch "feelz" ethos when it comes to the issues as a whole.

But then McEntee is justice minister - the same person who is legalising illegal immigrants at the moment too. Like Leo, far more concerned with virtue signalling and twitter likes and the impact on their social media profiles than the impact on society.

The social fabric and security of many of our towns and cities is gradually disintegrating because of it, and weak minds and politicised "solutions" will only increase the pace of this, not reverse it.

I've nothing new to add, so I'll just add an odd anecdote. I can see where mike is coming from. I'm not a big lad. Only 5'6" (and if they had kept the height restriction, maybe I wouldn't have ruined a part of my life by joining). I wasn't fit or strong. I was enough of both to pass the physical fitness tests and the push/pull machine, but only just I'd say.

Anyway, I was well aware of this and ensure I policed as best I could without taking things too far and ending up in a scuffle I couldn't handle. From from small man syndrome, I was the opposite and ensured that I had good backup before engaging. Unfortunately, not everyone of my similar size or stature thought the same. There was one girl in particular, couldn't have been taller than 5'4", and a wisp of a thing. She was so aggressive, I used to hate being on patrol with her. She would annoy people with her "I'm the guard you do what I say" mentality. No consideration of who it was, who was around, if there was support, how far away backup was.... Now, she wasn't the only one. Plenty of the hard lads were at it too, but they could at least back some of it up with physical strength. Any time this was got in a scuffle, she usually ended up injured. I've also seen small men and women fight better than the hardest looking Garda there.

We don't want soft people joining AGS, we need hardy people who won't be a liability in a scuffle. The current recruitment doesn't take that into account. They just want numbers, and particularly women and foreigners, because that will make them look diverse n stuff. AGS need to put ongoing fitness as part of the requirement. Ongoing free, during work fitness and weight classes by a professional who can work on areas Gardai need most.

Ther is also the story of one women who was massively overweight and got the rules overturned (too heavy to join) because it was unfair on her or something. Don't remember all the details, but I did work with her, and there was no way she passed the fitness exam. Plenty of lads let themselves go too though. But this was before even starting.

All good getting more members, but if the training and ongoing support isn't there, things will just repeat. And yeah, it's a pain in the hoop when a member goes on maternity. Work gets divvied out to everyone else working, as if they didn't have enough already.... Be worse now with fathers having a hape of time too, as a lot of Garda couples are in the same station, so you lost 2 members for weeks now instead of one. Nothing will change after this "drive".

I think the moral of the story is - the best recruit for AGS is a robot.

There will always be a need for cover for members who are sick, injured, on mat/pat leave, on courses, in court and otherwise. I've heard of stations being able to solve this easily with overtime. I've seen other stations refuse to spend a penny on overtime and let the rest of the unit suffer for it. To me the latter means it's a management problem who instead of telling up the ladder that they need more resources/manpower they'll rather work their few guards into the ground.

I may have already mentioned it but there's a reason why the majority of garda stations and resources are unfit for purpose - unlike local authorities, the HSE and other public bodies; Garda management prefer to say that everything is ok in their lot and ask for a promotion instead of spending the money allocated to them or perhaps even seeking more.

This is why I'm a fan of the current Commissioner. He is not playing the same politics, and that's making things difficult for those who enjoyed the status quo. Hopefully the benefit of it all will eventually be felt by those in the lower ranks.

Yeah, except if that same Garda did it today, he'd probably be accused of sexual harassment because he rubbed off the side of her boob while trying to get her into the cage. More members = more witnesses!