McMonagle: ‘I don’t know how we are going to cover this county’

The former Chairperson of the Joint Policing Committee has said it is becoming increasingly difficult to police Donegal.

Gerry McMonagle, the Sinn Féin councillor, was speaking following the attestation of just six new members of An Garda Síochána to the NorthWestern Region from the 157 who passed out.

“This is not an unusual occurrence, we tend to always get the lower end of the allocations despite having such a large geographical area,” McMonagle told DonegalLive. “We have been short gardaí and other resources for years. 

“Now, having just two district headquarters, Ballyshannon and Letterkenny, I don’t know how we are going to cover this county without additional gardaí. Letterkenny itself could do with six never mind the rest of the county, we hardly have a Garda Station open now outside of the main district offices.”

For policing purposes, the country is divided into four regions. The NorthWestern region encompasses Donegal/ Sligo/ Leitrim; Mayo/ Roscommon/ Longford; Galway; Cavan/Monaghan/Louth.

The Southern Division covers Clare/ Tipperary; Limerick; Kerry; Cork West/Cork North and Cork City. 

The Eastern Region is comprised of Meath/Westmeath; Kildare/ Laois/ Offaly; Wexford/ Wicklow; Waterford/ Kilkenny/Carlow and the Dublin Metropolitan Region, which is responsible for Dublin only. 

Comparatively, the 151 other newly sworn members from today’s ceremony in Templemore, Co Tipperary, will be regionally allocated as follows: The Dublin Region will gain 102; the  Eastern Region will be allocated 38; and the Southern Region will receive 11 members.

“We have met with [Garda Commisoner] Drew Harris on many occasions, both formally and at peace authority meetings when we pressed upon the need for more gardaí, to be promised the recruitment drive will deliver more gardaí and unfortunately, it has not,” McMonagle continued. “If anything the recruit numbers are falling and that’s probably to do with terms and conditions more than anything else. It used to be an attractive career, but it’s not so attractive now and it is getting harder to recruit people.

“If there’s six for the north-west rest assured there will be two for Sligo, possibly one in Leitrim and if were lucky we would get three in Donegal, [the recruitments] wouldn’t even match the retirements,” Cllr McMonagle added. “I don’t know how we will get out of this, the policing model suits cities, not rural areas.”

Out of the 157 recruits,  102 are male and 55 are female. Four probationers were former Reserve Gardaí and 17 Gardaí were born outside the state including in the USA, Pakistan, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Brazil and Romania. The 157 newly attested Gardaí bring the number of Probationer Gardaí to 710 since recruitment recommenced in 2022 following Covid-19 restrictions.

The new Gardaí commenced their Garda training in October 2023 and have undertaken a blend of online learning, on-site learning in the Garda College, and experiential learning in training Garda stations. 

During their training these new Probationer Gardaí were involved in community-based policing, observed and assisted in serious crime investigations, policed across the country during St Patricks Day events, and assisted at community events, Garda Youth Awards ceremonies amongst other events. These 157 newly sworn Gardaí will now take on operational responsibilities. 

A further 294 Garda recruits, two intakes, are currently undergoing the training programme at the Garda College. The next intake of Garda recruits is scheduled to enter the Garda College on Monday.

At present, there is a total of 14,100 Sworn Gardaí, 3,502 Garda Staff and 329 Garda Reserves serving with An Garda Síochána.