Trainee Gardai aren’t Gardai

Look to be fair, Fine Gael have a point: Gardai in Templemore aren’t fighting crime or doing deskwork, they are in training. It’s not sound to add that number to the effective Garda numbers. In which case the 14,000 number is a bit of messing for headlines and O’Keefe is more correct to claim the 12,762. This is a bit of transparently dodgy bookkeeping.

O’Keefe has been at this point for a while. The number was 12,200 in April this year and there is some way to go before 14,000 are on the street. That is not to say it won’t hit 14,000, just that it might not actually happen in time for May. Hence the need to add in trainee figures.