Newly recruited gardaí would not be sitting at desks but would be put directly into frontline, operational, high-visibility policing to benefit communities all over the State, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, said yesterday.
The Minister said the record recruitment drive to increase the strength of the Garda Síochána to 14,000, which last year saw over 1,100 recruits begin training and continued this year with a similar intake, would mean a very significant increase in Garda resources.
The Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy, was drawing up plans on how best to distribute and manage these resources, he said. The additional resources would be aimed at the areas of greatest need.
"Areas to benefit include those with a significant drug problem or public-order difficulties, and the extra resources will also allow for a significant increase in the numbers assigned to the Garda Traffic Corps," he said.
The traffic corps was due to increase its numbers to 800 in the course of this year, to 1,000 next year and to reach 1,200 members by 2008. "One thing the commissioner and I are equally determined is that these additional gardaí will not be sitting at desks. They will be put directly into frontline, operational, high-visibility policing," he said.
The Minister was speaking at the opening of a new Garda station in Ballina and later went on to open another in Riverstown, Co Sligo, where he declined to meet campaigners for a Nigerian woman currently in Mountjoy Prison pending her appeal against deportation. Mr McDowell said the matter was sub judice.
Over 50 protesters gathered outside the refurbished Garda station in Riverstown, Co Sligo. Pamela Izevbekhai, who was in hiding for five weeks before her arrest, has pleaded with the Minister to have pity on her two small daughters who, she says, will be forced to undergo female genital mutilation if they are deported.
While the Minister refused to answer media queries about the case on the grounds that it is currently before the High Court, he did say that it was "by no means unique" and that "hundreds, if not approaching thousands" of cases had been made to the authorities on the same basis.
"We make, I am quite satisfied, very reasonable decisions", he added.
During his visit to Riverstown, he paid tribute to the late Garda Gerard (Patrick) Reynolds, a native of the area, who gave his life in the line of duty when he was shot dead in Tallaght in 1982.