There's good news for anyone hoping for a career in the Garda Siochana. Last May the then Minister for Justice, Nora Owen, announced the recruitment of 1,000 trainee garda between 1998 and the year 2,000. This comes on top of the 1997 recruitment drive for 1,000 trainees for which applications were required by the end of June last.
However, even though there have been regular recruitment drives in recent years, there is no guarantee that they will continue. The decision to recruit depends on factors including retirement rates and the situation in Northern Ireland.
This year entry requirements have been extended to include the Leaving Cert Vocational, the Leaving Cert Applied and English and maths at foundation level. In the past the entry requirement was a minimum of grade D at ordinary level in at least five subjects. Now you will also be eligible for entry with three grade Ds including English, grade B in foundation level maths and grade C in foundation level Irish. Grade D in five Leaving Cert Vocational subjects of the merit grade in the Leaving Cert Applied is also acceptable for entry.
This year a new selection process has been introduced - it includes a written test and interview. The test is designed to assess reasoning skills and includes a job simulation exercise. Candidates who reach the required standard will be interviewed and will do a written exercise to gauge communication skills.
Interviewers are looking for people with common sense, who can keep a cool head, are flexible and have good problem-solving skills. "The job is 99 per cent common sense," observes one Garda source.
Training takes place over a twoyear period. Recruits spend their first six months in the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary, where courses include Irish, legal studies, policing studies, communication studies, social studies and technical (finger-printing and the like) studies, a language (French or German) and physical studies including sport.
The next six months are spent on work experience. Trainees are assigned to work with a tutor-garda in one of the garda training stations which are located in cities and large towns throughout the country. During this period they also benefit from a series of placements in specialist units at the training station - the drug unit, the traffic corps and the juvenile liaison office, for example. A two-week community-based placement working, say, in a hostel or with handicapped children is included in the programme.
In phase three trainees are back at college for three months after which they are attested to the force - that is they become members of the Garda Siochana. They then spend 32 weeks in stations throughout the country before returning to Templemore for a final six weeks.
Ask gardai and trainees what they like about their jobs and they will invariably tell you that it is the variety. Every day is different and you never know what to expect.
Promotion is highly competitive and can be slow. After three years' service at garda level, you can take an exam which qualifies you to be called to interview for the rank of sergeant. At the last count some 1,400 people had qualified to be sergeants, but only 110 positions were vacant.
