A Government pledge to increase the amount of money paid to Garda recruits, in a bid to get more people to apply to join the force, has been criticised as not going far enough by the largest Garda staff body.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA), which represents over 11,000 rank and file gardaí in a 14,000-strong force, said even when the allowance was increased, it was still significantly less than the minimum wage.
GRA general secretary, Ronan Slevin, said the increase to €354 weekly was “little more than a paltry crumb to plug the vast gap between the rate of payment versus the cost of living”.
He pointed out that over the 34-week Garda training period the payments amounted to “little over €12,000″.
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“I am not sure how anyone could survive on that pay, particularly during their 10 weeks when trainee gardaí can be deployed to large cities for ‘on the job’ training with exponential living costs,” Mr Slevin said, adding a much more significant increase was required.
There was a “recruitment and retention crisis” in the Garda and this “seems to have been met with another half-hearted response” by the Government. The GRA believes trainees should be paid around 80 per cent of the salary of first-year qualified gardaí, who earn €36,400 annually.
That would result in the weekly training allowance being increased to about €700, double the soon-to-be-introduced higher level.
Mr Slevin was responding to Minister for Justice Helen McEntee after she announced a second increase in a year to the training allowance payable to recruits during their eight months of training.
The move comes after The Irish Times revealed earlier this week significant recruitment efforts over the last two years had done little to increase Garda numbers.
The weekly allowance will be increase to €354, from €305 at present. Less than a year ago it was €184 but it was increased as part of efforts to attract more candidates and keep pace with the cost of living.
Ms McEntee has now announced the second increase in the allowance at the Fine Gael think-in in Tullamore, Co Offaly, saying it came at a time when the “highest ever allocation” of funding was available to the Garda.
“This is one of a number of actions I am taking to support Garda recruitment and retention,” Ms McEntee said of increasing the allowance.
“Other actions have included increasing the age of entry into An Garda Síochána from 35 to 50, increasing the retirement age and commencing a new Garda Reserve competition.”
The strength of the Garda force has stubbornly remained around 14,000, well below the record 14,750 at the start of the pandemic in early 2020. The Government and Garda headquarters want to increase the force to 15,000 sworn members and then continue expanding, with Garda Commissioner Drew Harris saying it should ideally expand to 18,000 members.
Though the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, has been reopened for two years, after pandemic restrictions forced its closure, recruitment has remained sluggish.
Garda resignations remain high while the number of gardaí retiring from the force is a constant drain on personnel levels. Amid those departures, Garda recruitment has been slower because many successful candidates are failing to take up their places in Templemore.
Mr Harris has said the Garda force was now competing with other employers in the booming economy, where recruitment was challenging. However, he has also said every time a Garda recruitment campaign was launched, thousands of candidates were applying.
Mr Harris also pointed to the significant increase in the number of older gardaí applying for permission to extend their service by a year when they reach retirement age as proof a career in policing is satisfying and remains attractive.
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