Frustration as just one trainee garda allocated to Cork city

LABOUR Party candidate for the Blackrock area Peter Horgan has slammed reports that just one trainee garda was allocated to Cork City and county from the recent batch of Templemore graduates.

“For Cork City and county to receive just one extra recruit is, quite frankly, shameful,” said Mr Horgan. 

“We’re the second city of the State. We have significant population increases and community policing needs.

“Areas like Blackrock and Mahon do a fine job with the resources they have but we need to support frontline gardaí more,” he added.

“The minister must do it and the commissioner must acknowledge. We have media reports of gardaí just quitting, we came desperately close to an overtime strike over rosters and now we see just one new garda allocated to Cork.

“We need to see a serious sea change in policing resources in this city.

“Crime across our communities is skyrocketing, yet we’ve yet to hear a proactive response from the Justice Minister on proposals to make our communities safer,” Mr Horgan stated further.

“Prevention is the best cure.” In their alternative budget the Labour Party proposed to resource An Garda Síochána to recruit an additional 900 trainees in 2024, which is the maximum capacity of Templemore.

“The training allowance of €184 a week should be increased to the starting salary grade of €34,572,” added Mr Horgan.

“We estimate this will cost €15m for up to 900 recruits over 33 weeks. We need more gardaí to help tackle the increase in anti-social behaviour, home burglaries and serious incidents of crime, so the offer for new recruits must be improved. Labour would also provide enough funding to hire 200 more civilian staff, thus freeing up more frontline gardaí to patrol our streets and keep our communities safe.”