Mattie McGrath demands Gardaí reinforcements for Clonmel

Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach, with your permission, I'd like to welcome the members of Clonmel Rotary Club to the gallery along with Councillor Richie Millay today. Taoiseach, I met yesterday with Councillor Niall Dinnehy and Councillor Molly McGrath, with the superintendent in Clonmel, new superintendent, James Hallihan, out of a deep sense of frustration at the ongoing neglect of Councillor Tipperary regarding gather numbers and gather presence. We discussed all the concerns and indeed she was very forthright and we talked it through. The numbers are just simply scary and you know it's not possible to operate a safe police presence and policing situation on the numbers that we have and this has gone on for a number of years where Clonmel and this year alone the whole south division, the whole Tipperary division, Tipperary and Clare division now which was a disastrous move, got one new gather recruit so far this year and at the same time we lost one from Clonmel, one of the ones came last year, one of the recruits who didn't stay in the job and that's okay as well that they might want to do that. But my message yesterday, our message was clear that we need a gather presence and we need visibility of Gardaí and we need a gather timely response when people need them. No police force in the world can police without the support of the public and we have it here and I'm always supporting Gardaí Tricona and it is clear as I said that we haven't the numbers to carry out the responses here and without the additional Gardaí coming we just can't do that. The Gardaí in Clare, Tipperary, Carrick and Shore, Cashkill and Clonmel, we just don't have the numbers to put out a squad car sometimes. It's scary and it's not good enough. The public deserve and expect resources. One night last November in the dark of night a convoy of four vehicles came from neighbouring county and they proceeded to rob numerous houses and businesses and one businessman frightened them off and followed them. That was his mistake and he was on the road then for 45 minutes he was on to the Gardaí station and no assistance to come to him. He was advised to drive to, he said he'd drive to Cashkill town Gardaí station, he was advised not to, that there was no members there. He was advised to drive to the Circle K for safety, for light and visibility there of CCD cameras. This is not good enough, Taoiseach and I'm asking you what are you going to do to increase the numbers? Because they're not there, they're doing a good job and I salute them and support them but they need proper numbers, it's not safe for them. The last Gardaí Commissioner under your government and previous governments really did a lot of damage to the Gardaí street corner and indeed great hopes for Minister O'Callaghan but his behaviour during the peaceful protests recently and your own and putting the Gardaí in a situation with the right police and everything else against ordinary decent people didn't help for morale of the public and they're supporting the Gardaí. They support the Gardaí always and want to and these people will and do and the heavy-handed tactics reminded me of the heavy-handed tactics of Fine Gael back in 73, 77. It was shocking the way they were treated so we need extra numbers in Tipperary, we need extra numbers in Clonmel especially, the anti-social behaviour of the anti-social. First of all I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. Just to say that Minister O'Callaghan and the government are very strong in terms of increasing the number of Gardaí. We've committed very substantial resources and we want to maintain those resources to continue to increase the number of Gardaí going into Templemore for training and the cohorts of over 200 trainees are now entering Templemore regularly. In the first intake of this year 215 recruits entered Templemore and 209 trainees entered the college on Monday the 4th of May and as of now, sorry as of the end of March, there's a total of nearly 14,500 Gardaí across the state. That's up 13% since 2015. So the numbers are coming in and I understand your concern in terms of those numbers and translating into County Tipperary and into Clonmel but believe me we will get around. I mean there's quite substantial numbers have gone into cities and they've made a big difference and it is the intention of the Commissioner to substantially increase the number of Gardaí in given towns like Clonmel and Ellsworth as the Gardaí continue to come through. But people are talking earlier about government expenditure and so on. To keep this at a very high level we do need to maintain a ring fence the expenditure for that and I think that is something that everybody wants. Operation Tora has been operating since 2015 which is dealing with rural crime and burglaries I understand have come down 75% since 2016. So the Gardaí are making a lot a lot of progress and the Gardaí do enjoy the confidence of the public but I agree that we need more numbers in Tipperary and we will allocate as soon as numbers come out of Templemore in line with the operational and strategic planning of the Gardaí Commissioner himself. We've also been working on freeing up and there's been a significant increase in Gardaí civilian staff which has freed up about 1900 sorry about 900 Gardaí have been freed up for frontline duties as a result of that particular initiative and we will continue to work with communities with the Chamber of Commerce across the country and business groups with a view to supporting them in terms of protecting their goods and their services from crime and also on working collectively with communities in terms of what's the best overall planning approach to reducing crime and protecting people. Thank you Taoiseach. Deputy McGrath. Taoiseach yes I want to ask you when will the government really have a measurable number of Gardaí to put into rural towns and rural counties and I'm talking about Tipperary here and will you commit today to specific plan to restore Gardaí numbers to Tipperary. Taoiseach I'm not sure that this calling the 999 every person now has been told that's from my meeting yesterday as well to ring 999. The connectivity with the local Gardaí and the Gardaí on the beat there's nothing no replacement for it and the community Gardaí and I want to salute Gardaí Fiona in Tipperary in Clonmel and her other three colleagues now who have been replaced in the in Salisbury and O'Leary in the community policing division or section desperately needed and they do a great job but there haven't enough of them and they're pulled off at the community units every other time when there's an issue and shortages and the amount of time wasted in courts and the amount of time wasted in other situations that they shouldn't be dealing with. We have to move on here and get the Gardaí out on the beat, meet the people and stand with the people and they stand with the Gardaí but at the moment we don't have the supports and the anti-social behaviour sulky raised another huge problem. Taoiseach to respond time is up Deputy McGrath thank you. Taoiseach to respond. Yeah first of all we are providing very substantial resources to Angoranish Economy and there's been substantial change in terms of recruitment processes and we've increased recruitment age and training allowance, shortened recruitment time frames, reform of the physical competency test, introduction of the assessment centre approach to elements of recruitment and we've had two recruitment campaigns in 2025 and likewise again in 2026. So the numbers are increasing but they need to increase more and we need to be very consistent in terms of the allocation of resources to the Gardaí recruitment programme but also then more broadly in terms of equipment in terms of supports to Angoranish Economy which we are doing.