Sinn Féin has said a second Garda training college may not be the best way to boost the force’s numbers in the short term.
The party on Wednesday unveiled a range of proposals aimed at tackling recruitment and retention in the force, and criticised Government over sluggish growth in the overall numbers in the force.
However, while Sinn Féin has previously pledged to open a second training facility if in government, its document instead commits to initiate a feasibility study to examine the costs of potential locations of a second Garda college.
“While a second Garda college may be required in the medium to longer term, in the shorter term increasing the annual output of trained gardaí will be best achieved by increasing the capacity of Templemore,” the document states.
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The Government has previously said it will consider the establishment of a second training college.
Sinn Féin has proposed a package of incentives to improve Garda recruitment and retention of more than €14 million.
The party’s justice spokesman Matt Carthy said that while numbers applying to join the force are reasonably strong, the net addition to Garda numbers is minor – with 179 net additional members by the end of the third quarter of this year.
“Getting people to want to join the gardaí isn’t an issue,” Mr Carthy told journalists at Leinster House on Wednesday, with 11,000 people applying to join this year.
“But the reality is that we have, over the first eight months of this year, a grand total of 179 new and additional gardaí in our communities.”
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He said that increasing the number of gardaí in Dublin city centre was also putting more pressure on other areas, adding that Government was overly reliant on overtime to bring gardaí on to the streets.
Sinn Féin’s policy document argues for increased capacity at the Garda training college in Templemore, Co Tipperary, with new intake growing from 50 to 275 per class. The party’s general election manifesto said the establishment of a second Garda training college would be a priority for it in government. In July, the party said it had “pledged to open a second Garda training college” to ensure an intake capacity of 1,500 per year.
Asked about this, Mr Carthy said it was “very possible” that a second training college will be required into the future, but that his focus was on the “here and now and the immediate crisis”.
The party is arguing that the Garda training allowance be increased from its current level of €354 per week to €579.15 per week, which it says would bring it in line with the minimum wage at an annual cost of €9 million.
It also says there should be targeted recruitment in working-class communities to increase representation in the force. It says a policing grant of €3,000 – paid in two instalments – should be paid to gardaí who have resigned to return to the force. The cost of this would be €150,000.
Garda pay should be improved by the removal of two points on the Garda pay scale so that members would move up the increments more quickly. The combined cost of this would be €2.6 million, the party says. A “long-service payment” of €2,500 per year for gardaí with 30 or more years of service should be introduced, Mr Carthy said, at a cost of €2.52 million, with the mandatory garda retirement age rising to 65.
The Cavan-Monaghan TD said police forces in other parts of the world have been actively recruiting gardaí, and that when they do so, their previous service is recognised – but that does not happen in reverse.
