600 new gardaí to be recruited next year
Six hundred new gardaí will be recruited next year, bringing the total number of new recruits since September 2014 to 1,150.
The Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald has now opened a recruitment campaign for 2016, after funding for the 600 new posts was announced in Budget 2016 last month.
A moratorium on Garda recruitment ended in 2013. At that stage, more than 24,000 applications were received for an initial 300 posts.
"We've always attracted way more applicants than available positions," Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan (pictured) said today. "We want to build on that, attracting people from every strand of Irish life to help us renew our culture while retaining our best traditions."
The Commissioner added people were attracted to the Force in part because of the variety of roles on offer, from community policing to detective work and forensics, to working with the dog unit or being part of the mounted unit. Secondments to overseas police services and to the United Nations are also a possibility.
She added: "I want people of every background, right throughout the country, to think about joining us and help to make us a beacon of modern policing."
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said the 2016 campaign would, in addition to an Irish language stream, include a special stream for eligible members of the Garda Reserve who give their time on a voluntary basis to support the work of An Garda Síochána.
She welcomed the recruitment drive as "an important day for An Garda Síochána".
The new candidates will begin at the Garda College in Templemore from the middle of next year.
Applications to join An Garda Síochána must be made through PublicJobs.ie. The closing date for applications is January 5 next year.
