We had that regular Thursday pantomime at the end of the first part of Leaders' Questions. I want to focus on an issue that is important to the Labour Party, which is Garda resources and Garda recruitment. Specifically, I want to raise with the Tánaiste the lack of new Garda stations and the Government's continued lack of meeting Garda recruitment figures. According to a reply to a parliamentary question I submitted earlier this year, since 2017, only two new Garda stations have been delivered in the country, despite the population increasing by nearly 1 million citizens. One of those stations is on O'Connell Street in the centre of Dublin. The other was a replacement of the divisional headquarters in Wexford. There has been only one new Garda station in eight years. It is simply unacceptable. In my town of Swords, the third largest town in Ireland, we have a Garda station that is only fit for a village. The town of Donabate, just up the road, which is served by Swords Garda station and will be 20,000 people strong in a couple of years, has no Garda station or plans for a Garda station.

This is not unusual throughout the country. My colleagues and I are screaming out for more resources throughout the country, particularly in rural Ireland, where we are being gaslit by the Minister about Garda resources. In a response earlier this year, the justice Minister said that 56 stations in this country were not closed but were simply unstaffed. That is absolute nonsense. If the door is not open and there are no opening hours for people to go in and meet and talk to gardaí, that station is, in effect, closed.

Here is the reality. Figures show that 129 of 567 stations had a reduction in the number of gardaí assigned to them in the last year, and one in ten stations is without any designated garda. Overall numbers in An Garda Síochána have actually grown, by a paltry increase of 193. However, if you dig into the detail, the number of front-line gardaí has actually decreased, from just over 12,000 to 11,928, a net decrease. Warning lights are being flashed for the Government. At its conference this year, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors stated that we could lose 30% to 50% of our force due to upcoming retirements. Fine Gael has always identified itself as the party of law and order, yet the Tánaiste's party has stood over this lack of delivery for nearly a decade. The Tánaiste was one of the Ministers responsible for this portfolio, lest we forget. This situation is now beyond urgent and we need to see this Government make big changes to ensure greater recruitment and retention of gardaí and investment in Garda stations. The Government needs to look at increasing the training allowance, at pension reform and at building more stations.

Will the Tánaiste increase the Garda training allowance to really incentivise new recruits? Will he reform the pension for our uniformed service members, including our gardaí who were hired post 2013, who upon retirement will receive no support from the State for possibly ten years? Will this Government commit to significantly increasing the number of new Garda stations being built around the country, prioritising large towns that have unfit-for-purpose stations, such as my own, Swords, and for really rapidly growing towns such as Donabate and many others throughout the country?

I agree with the Deputy that we obviously need to get more gardaí on our streets. We need to recruit and train more gardaí. The Deputy has made some suggestions as to how he thinks that can be done and I will come back to that in a moment. I need to make a few points about the level of investment we are now making in the Garda budget to empower the Garda Commissioner and Garda authorities to increase the numbers. We have a Garda budget of €2.59 billion for next year. This will fund recruitment of up to 1,000 new gardaí and 200 more Garda staff and also a doubling of the Garda Reserve to over 600 next year. We have run two Garda recruitment campaigns in 2025 and we have seen more than 11,000 applications to join An Garda Síochána received this year. There is genuinely a sense when I talk to the Minister and Garda authorities, as the Deputy can probably see himself, that there is some momentum with the number of people going into Templemore, though I admit it has been a challenging number of years. We saw, for example, 194 gardaí attested last week. This brings the total number of newly attested gardaí so far this year to 617. We saw 223 trainees enter Templemore in the last couple of weeks as well. This was the largest intake in Templemore since 2014, so the largest intake in 11 years. We have seen 794 trainees enter Templemore so far this year, which is the most since 2018. There are larger attestations, the largest training classes going on and the largest number of people overall training in Templemore in many years.

As of October this year, which is the latest month for which numbers are available, there are a total of 14,290 gardaí across the State. For comparison, in 2015, there were 12,816. There are now 3,487 Garda staff, which obviously helps to free up gardaí to put them on front-line duties as well. The Deputy asked specifically about the Garda training allowance and pension. I hear these issues too. I was in Coolock Garda station not too long ago. This discussion came up last year too. I need to say that all of these matters are for discussion and engagement through normal processes, public pay processes and the likes, rather than for me to give loose commitments on the floor of the Dáil.

Specifically on the third point, about Garda capital, I know the Minister for justice had approval at Cabinet this week for the Garda sectoral plan, as part of the sectoral investment plan in justice. That will see a significant increase in the number of Garda stations being constructed in the time ahead. I am conscious of the point the Deputy makes and I will talk to the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, about this, particularly with the fast-growing populations around Swords, Donabate and the likes, and the particular need for additional infrastructure there. I will ask the Minister to come back on that.

The capital plan that has been drafted does not seem to be rooted in the reality of how towns are growing. My colleague Deputy Conor Sheehan talked about the Garda station and Garda needs in Castletroy. Every Member in this House will say the same. There needs to be a commitment to the reality. I did not mention investment, because we have had no shortage of money; it is a shortage of delivery. There has been some creativity in how the figures for recruits into Templemore have been published over the last couple of years, with recruitment classes starting very late in the year, where in essence they were beginning in the following year. All this has been revealed through parliamentary questions from our justice spokesperson, Deputy Alan Kelly, and other Members in our party. Fundamentally, two things are happening here. We are not recruiting or attracting enough gardaí. As a result, our communities and people are not feeling safe or protected. That is a real issue that the Government has not got a handle on despite the amount of money we have in the coffers. I ask the Tánaiste again to properly recommit to a training fund and to pension reform, and to prioritise those towns and villages all over this country that need proper Garda resources invested in their communities.

I acknowledge the point the Deputy makes, and do not want to jump over it, that it is not now an issue of shortage of money. It used to be. It is an issue now where we are actually able to invest properly, but that also means that we need to look at the processes. If 11,000 people put up their hand and say they want to join An Garda Síochána, the Minister for justice and the Garda Commissioner are eager to make sure that the pipeline is as efficient as possible in taking expressions of interest to join An Garda Síochána, robustly vetting and training those individuals and then having them on the streets, serving the people of this country and keeping people safe as well. There are some signs of positivity in Garda recruitment at the moment, albeit admitting that, with the closure of the college twice during Covid and the financial crash, there was lost time, which caused significant disruption.

We have also made changes to the recruitment age, the maximum age at which someone can join An Garda Síochána and the retirement age, and we have seen some positive effects from that too.

I will take the points the Deputy made back to the Minister for his conversation with the Garda Commissioner about matching investment in Garda stations and population growth. It is not an unfair point. Many parts of this country are growing much more quickly than other parts. The other issues of how to improve incentivisation for recruitment and retention are matters for the normal engagement and industrial relations.