Madam, - Mary Raftery's column of December 9th carries the heading "Promise of 2,000 extra gardaí a lie", and goes on to claim that "at the heart of the 2,000 extra gardaí promise lie both deception and incompetence". The assertion in the headline is specious, tendentious and, to use your own word, "a lie".
The truth is that there is no substance to these claims. It is simply a fact that the extra gardaí are currently being recruited, and indeed the first recruitment advertisements have already appeared in The Irish Times and the other national newspapers. Although the closing date is some days away, I understand that over 5,000 people have already applied for this competition.
While the claim of the article is one of lies and deception, the substance is that what is needed is more civilianisation of the Garda Síochána, so that gardaí currently doing administrative work can be replaced by civilian staff and released for policing duties, leading to an increase in the effective policing strength of the force.
The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has long accepted that more needs to be done on civilianisation within the force. Indeed, a programme of further civilianisation and outsourcing is in course of preparation. Surprisingly, Ms Raftery fails to mention that over 1,000 civilians are already employed on administrative and support duties within the force.
It is true that the ceiling on public service numbers has historically constrained progress on Garda civilianisation, and the case for additional civilians in the force will have to be argued alongside the case for additional staff in other areas of the public sector.
That process will continue, but as a quite separate matter the Government is committed to increasing the strength of the Force by 2,000 members. The additional Gardaí will be put directly into front-line policing and not into administration.
There is no contradiction between the twin objectives of civilianisation and an increase in the strength of the Force. - Yours, etc.,
OONAGH McPHILLIPS, Press Officer, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Dublin 2.