Garda Commissioner, Mr. Justin Kelly: I am grateful for the invitation to meet the Chair and committee members. I was honoured to have been appointed Garda Commissioner on 1 September this year. As someone who started his career on the beat in Dublin, it is a privilege to lead this great organisation that does incredible work every day to keep people and this nation safe.

The Chair has asked me to speak about my priorities as Commissioner. These include meeting the Government commitment to recruit 5,000 gardaí over the next five years; increasing garda visibility in cities and urban locations based on our successful high-visibility policing initiative in Dublin city centre; providing gardaí with the tools they need to do their jobs safely and effectively, including body cams and, through a trial, tasers; providing reassurance to rural communities; tackling crimes such as anti-social behaviour and drug dealing that impact on local communities, which are usually, but not exclusively, disadvantaged; improving our service to victims, particularly victims of domestic abuse; enhancing our roads policing response to fully play our part in making our roads safer; protecting this country from increasingly sophisticated national security threats; and meeting the significant policing and security obligations during EU Presidency while maintaining day-to-day policing.

As of 31 September 2025, there have been 14,325 gardaí and 3,650 staff. Following a difficult period for recruitment due to the pandemic, An Garda Síochána now has momentum in hiring gardaí. We are making good progress towards the commitment in the programme for Government to hire 5,000 gardaí over the next five years and grow the overall size of the organisation, including the Garda Reserve and Garda staff numbers. There are now 200 more gardaí than this time last year, and our pipeline for growth this year and next is also strong. An additional 190 gardaí will go to stations across the country from Friday of this week. Over 220 garda trainees will enter the college on Monday week. This is our biggest class in ten years. This was possible because of the work we have done to improve the recruitment process and increase capacity in the college. It will bring the overall number of trainees who entered the Garda College in 2025 to 800.

Our resignation level, of 1%, is well below those of other police services and that of the private sector. More gardaí are staying longer, enabling us to retain their skills and experience, and we are even seeing a small number of resigned gardaí re-joining. There were 11,000 applications in the two Garda recruitment competitions held this year. The diversity of applicants in terms of age, gender and ethnicity is positive but there is more work to be done in this area.

We believe that with additional capacity in the Garda College, an operational training centre and continued improvements to the recruitment process, the five-year target can be met. As the Department of justice's Garda recruitment and training capacity group said, it will be challenging but it is achievable. The increasing Garda numbers mean we can increase Garda visibility, with a focus on key urban locations. An Garda Síochána must play its part to ensure people feel safe to work and socialise in our towns and cities.

The public and business community have already seen the benefits of our Dublin city centre high-visibility policing initiative, with increases in detections of anti-social behaviour, up 18%, of drunkenness, up 67%, and of drugs for sale or supply, up 3%. The numbers for many crimes are down. For example, theft from a person is down 28%, robbery from an establishment is down 9%, begging is down 57%, and assaults causing harm are down 17%. We are currently examining where to expand the initiative further in Dublin. We will also be replicating this initiative in our cities and major urban centres around the country. Cork will be next.

It is resource intensive so when we introduce high visibility, it must be sustainable. This is not for a weekend or a particular time of the year; it is all year round.

Crime levels in our rural communities are generally low but that does not mean these areas are immune from crime, especially the fear of crime, particularly among people who may feel isolated and vulnerable. Our anti-burglary operation, Operation Thor, has significantly reduced burglaries, particularly in rural areas that were being targeted by gangs. Residential burglary during the winter, when it traditionally peaks, has fallen by 75% since Operation Thor’s introduction ten years ago. That work is continuing. In addition, under the Department of justice’s rural safety plan, we recently appointed a superintendent as our first rural crime lead. The superintendent will work with a range of farming and rural bodies, as well as the rural crime safety forum, to co-ordinate efforts to prevent and detect crime in rural Ireland...

[click here for the full debate]