There is a very thin line between anarchy and good living. I support gardaí in their efforts always and, indeed, last Thursday night. Shamefully, however, the numbers of gardaí in my county have dropped to an appalling level. Carrick-On-Suir, with 5,000 in its town and hinterland, has four gardaí and two sergeants. Its complement is 14 gardaí and four sergeants. Up in Clonmel, it is almost as bad, and there is Cahir, Cashel station, which has been closed and there is no night service, right up to Roscrea, Thurles and Templemore. It is all the areas. Then last week, they were all asked to come up and they are being continually asked to come up to do extra work in Dublin for overtime with the €10 million the Government gave, supposedly. This is diminishing the numbers of gardaí in rural counties, including Tipperary in my case, by taking them to Dublin. I know Dublin has to be policed but so too has the rest of the country. It is an appalling lack of gardaí under the Taoiseach’s watch and that of the Minister. They have continually failed to give the proper support so that An Garda Síochána has the proper numbers and resources which it deserves and needs. The force serves us loyally but it needs support and numbers.

I agree that all parts of the country need to be adequately policed and not just our city centres. We are now back up to around 14,000 Garda members. Some 700 to 800 recruits will go through the Garda College this year. There will be 800 to 1,000 next year, and we anticipate we will be up to 14,500 gardaí again by the end of 2024. When the Garda College was closed during the pandemic, we lost over a year of recruitment. We are bouncing back from that now. Garda staff are being employed in unprecedented numbers to free up gardaí. We have more than 3,000 Garda staff. That is an increase of 43% from 2015.