Recruitment competition for Garda Trainees

An Garda Síochána, in conjunction with the Public Appointments Service, has opened a recruitment competition for Garda trainees. The competition is now open until 3pm on April 24th, is seeking to attract candidates from across society and with a wide-variety of skills to join An Garda Síochána.

 

As of March 31st, there are 14,161 members of An Garda Síochána and there is a Government commitment to grow this to 15,000 by 2021. In order to encourage candidates from minority communities, An Garda Síochána will consider alterations to the Garda uniform to take account of religious and ethnic requirements subject to operational, and health and safety obligations.

 

For example, An Garda Síochána is to allow the wearing of the turban for members of the Sikh community and the hijab for members of the Muslim community. An Garda Síochána has identified such matters as a major barrier to some people considering becoming a Garda member. 

 

This approach is in line with that adopted by police services such as the PSNI, Police Scotland, New Zealand Police, NYPD, and other police services in UK, Australia and Canada. An Garda Síochána is also carrying out research with communities who are under-represented in An Garda Síochána to identify what more the organisation needs to do to encourage them to join An Garda Síochána either as a Garda member, Garda staff or Garda reserve. 

 

Garda trainee candidates can apply on www.publicjobs.ie