Garda urged to hire women and ethnic minority officers

Figures released by Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald show that only a quarter of gardaí are women, while a forthcoming report by the Garda Inspectorate will call on the force to recruit more officers from Ireland’s Polish, Latvian, Romanian and Muslim communities.

One Garda source told the Irish Examiner that the lack of recruitment since 2009 meant there “has been no chance to recruit people with these criteria in mind”.

A total of 550 gardaí are being recruited this year, with a further 600 to be recruited in 2016.

The source added: “We need a service that looks like the community it polices. CSO figures indicate 12 per cent of the population is from a diverse background, but the force is narrow in terms of diversity.”

The number of women gardaí has increased from 2,180 in December 2005 to 3,332 in September 2015, but still stands at a paltry 26 per cent of the force.

That represents a steady rise from 18 per cent in 2005 and 24 per cent in 2010. If recruitment of women continues at this rate, it will take up to 30 years before Ireland has an equal number of men and women gardaí.