KILDARE SHORT BY 268 GARDA PERSONNEL: STAGG

The Kildare Garda division is short by 268 personnel across Rank and File Gardaí, Garda Reserves, Community Gardaí and Civilian Personnel, according to Garda figures obtained by Labour representative for Kildare North, Emmett Stagg.

Labour’s spokesperson for Older People said:

“These figures, based on Kildare population stats in the 2016 Census, clearly show that across all codes of Garda Personnel Kildare continues to be short-changed with under manning in each area based on the population of the County, compared to the rest of the Country.

“The following are the actual figures as of 31st October, 2016, with the shortfall if we had 4.7% of resources allocated to Kildare and the number of personnel we should have if there was a fair and equitable distribution of Garda Resources.

ACTUAL SHORTFALL NUMBER KILDARE
SHOULD HAVE

Gardaí 307 206 513
Reserves 23 13 36
Community 0 35 35
Civilian 29 14 43
——– ——– ————
TOTAL 359 268 627
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“The Commissioner previously promised that with new recruitment the historical imbalance in the Kildare Division would be redressed. So far attested gardai assigned to the Kildare Division since the reopening of Templemore in September 2014 have been allocated in line with Kildare’s population. We have 4.7% of the State’s population and we were allocated 4.7% of new recruits.

“But this will not address the historical imbalance in manning in the Kildare Division and the only way to correct this is to have allocations now of up to 10% of new recruits. This will also have to apply to Reserve Members which are to grow to 2,000 by 2021, and Civilian Members which are to grow to 4,000 by 2021.

“I plan to raise this serious issue again with the Garda Commissioner as there is now an opportunity to correct this wrong in the allocation of the Garda Force across all grades. If the correction is not implemented now it never will be.”

ENDS

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