Fears Gardai ranks could fall to 12k by 2028 with retirement spike amid ‘serious changes to address recruitment’ alert. Many Gardai, Hate going into Work. Too much Stupid Rules and Rogue Gardai, Lurking in the Shadows.

The Justice Minster has said he hopes numbers won’t drop to 12k

As it stands, there are currently just over 14,000 sworn members in the force and the Government has pledged to recruit 5,000 more over the course of their tenure.

But AGSI insists that it is simply not possible because of the recruitment crisis.

If the numbers do fall back to that figure, it would have serious knock-on effects in terms of high visibility policing, response times to 999 calls and on investigations.

General Secretary of the AGSI Ronan Clogher said: “We had 141 new recruits graduate on the 2nd of March, we have lost 109 through retirements and resignations in quarter one 2025.