The Garda S∅ochβna will reach its highest strength next May when the recruit intake will bring the force level to 12,000 members, it has been confirmed.
The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, who addressed the latest graduation class from the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, yesterday, has also approved the recruitment of another 500 civilian staff to do clerical duties for the Garda.
This move, the Minister said, would allow garda∅ who have been engaged in clerical duties back on policing duties.
There are already about 1,700 civilian clerical staff working for the Garda.
Mr O'Donoghue officiated at the graduation ceremony for 133 recruits, 54 of them women, who have completed their two-year training course at Templemore.
Of the 133 recruits, 67 are being posted to Dublin and the rest spread around the State.
After the graduation ceremony the Minister and Garda Commissioner Mr Pat Byrne presented bravery awards to seven garda∅.
Six received bronze Scott medals for confronting armed criminals and one for rescuing a woman from the River Lee while it was in full spate.
Two of the recipients were shot and received pellet injuries. Garda Fearghal Pattwell, from Clonakilty, Co Cork, was hit by a shotgun blast while taking part in a siege at Smithfield in Dublin in January 1998.
Garda Pattwell, son of Judge Michael Pattwell, was struck in the shoulder and arm.
In the same incident Insp John Gantly, who was then a sergeant, was also injured when hit in the face by shotgun pellets.
Both were members of an armed team from the Garda's Emergency Response Unit (ERU).
Det Insp John Mulligan, who was beside the two injured garda∅, assisted them and then led the raid on the flat where the gang had been hiding. He was uninjured.
The armed gang was overpowered and a number of men were later jailed.
The other recipients include Garda Gerard McGrath, who chased and captured a robber who had used a blood-filled syringe to hold up staff of the Unicare chemists at Castleknock Shopping Centre in Dublin in 1997.
When Garda McGrath confronted the two robbers, one tried to stab him with the syringe. They ran to a car and Garda McGrath broke the window and forced the two to run off. He pursued them and arrested one.
Det Garda∅ Brendan O'Donovan and Dominick Reilly, of Henry Street Garda station in Limerick, overpowered and arrested a robber armed with a loaded shotgun at the Spar supermarket on the Dublin Road in Limerick in September 1999.
In June 1998, Garda James Hennessy, of the Bridewell station in Cork, dived into the Lee and rescued a woman who had been caught in a strong tide. Garda Hennessy placed the woman on his back and managed to swim to the bank. The Scott medal for bravery has been awarded to only 360 garda∅ since its inception in 1924.It is often awarded some time after the events to allow for court proceedings.