Wicklow Sinn Féin TD John Brady has said that the government is failing to make any progress in tackling the recruitment and retention crisis in An Garda Síochána after new figures show a sharp decline in Garda numbers in the county over the past five years.
Figures released to Sinn Féin in response to a Parliamentary Question show that as of May 2025 there were 278 Gardaí stationed in County Wicklow, compared to 312 Gardaí only five years ago. This represents a fall of 34 officers, or almost 11 percent, over the period.
Deputy Brady said this continuing decline in Garda numbers is having a direct impact on community safety.
“We have too few Gardaí to police our communities, too few Gardaí to prevent crime and to prevent young people becoming involved in crime, too few Gardaí in community policing and too few in roads policing,” he said.
Brady pointed out that despite repeated government promises and publicity around recruitment drives, the reality on the ground is very different.
“These figures show that as of May this year, there are 34 fewer Gardaí stationed in Wicklow than there were in 2020. That is an almost 11 percent decrease in Garda numbers in just five years. There was a lot of fanfare from Minister O’Callaghan earlier in the year about the recruitment drive, but nothing has been achieved in terms of increasing the number of Gardaí available to police the streets of Wicklow,” he said.
“This is simply not good enough. It is putting our communities at risk, and the failure to recruit new officers will inevitably lead to more overworked and overstretched Gardaí leaving the force. What the government is doing is not working. There are serious problems in recruitment and retention which the Minister is simply not addressing. The number of recruits coming out of Templemore is not keeping up with the numbers retiring, leaving or being redeployed,” he continued.
Brady also criticised the government’s failure to deliver on its own targets for Garda recruitment.
“Large numbers may be applying to join the Gardaí but no intake over the last two years has seen the training college operating at full capacity. The government is nowhere near reaching its target of training 1,000 Gardaí a year. There needs to be a significant increase in the Garda training allowance, taking into account both the cost of living and the fact that those in the older age groups now being asked to join are more likely to have financial responsibilities that make this allowance unworkable,” he said.
Concluding, Deputy Brady said urgent action is needed to both retain experienced officers and ensure sufficient new Gardaí are trained and deployed.
“To address the retention crisis there also needs to be a focus on addressing the current disincentives that exist in terms of retaining those Gardaí who have 30 or more years’ service of which there are now over 1,000 nationwide. Without real changes to recruitment and retention, the decline we are seeing in Wicklow will only worsen,” he said.