The number of Gardaí operating in north inner city Dublin has declined by around 4% since the start of the year, after a key Garda training college was closed down by the government’s Covid lockdown policies.
The Garda college in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, was shut down as a result of the government’s Covid-19 lockdown policy. According to then-Justice Minister Simon Harris in May, this resulted in around 1,000 less recruits signing up for the force than would have been expected.
“I know people may not like people harping back to Covid, but it is a statement of fact that we saw the Garda College in Templemore closed at least twice during the Covid pandemic,” he said.
“We probably, as a result, saw at least a fewer thousand sworn members of An Garda Síochána as a result of that closure of the college.”
He added: “It takes time to then ramp back up what is a pretty major machine around Garda recruitments, because it involves vetting, it involves medicals, it involves fitness tests, and of course it involves the completion of the training itself.”
Similarly, on Monday Tánaiste Micheál Martin admitted that Garda numbers were impacted by Covid policies.
Before the closure of the college, national Garda numbers had actually been growing annually, and were at a record high of 14,750.
However, as of April this year, they have dropped below 14,000 for the first time in years, and they are down 4% in Dublin’s north inner city.
Law and order features prominently in the news this week after an unnamed “youth” was arrested in connection with a 57-year-old American tourist being hospitalised with “life altering injuries” to his head last week. The tourist, Stephen Termini, was set upon by a gang of youths on Dublin’s Store Street, where he was punched and kicked in the head repeatedly.
His family said that his wife had passed away of an illness last year, and that he had “saved every penny” for a “dream visit” to Ireland.
Reacting to the attack, Termini’s family accused Justice Minister Helen McEntee of being “out of touch with her own people” for saying that Dublin city is “safe.”
Helen McEntee 'out of touch with her own people' says family of US tourist injured in Dublin https://t.co/O7aUFVWGAC
— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) July 24, 2023