Our Population Doubles While Our Garda Numbers Halve

Street life…

n numbers charting the number of frontline garda over the past 10 years, it’s revealed that Greystones has gone from 26 on our streets in 2016 to just 13 last year.

This despite the fact that the population of the town has practically doubled in those 10 years, to an estimated 26,000.

Nationally, there has been a decline of 600 frontline gardaí over the past six years, whilst the number of stations unmanned has climbed to 63, up from 56 in 2024.

According to a report in today’s Indo, the reduction of beats on our streets is a pattern that’s been repeated across the country, with severe drops in several large garda stations since 2020, including Mountjoy (which lost 59 garda), Waterford (-48), Mullingar (-31), Thurles (-24), Salthill (-21), Dundalk (-19) and Cahir (-18).

This despite the fact that the official An Garda Síochána figures show a net increase in overall garda numbers last year. Of those, 145 were frontline staff.

The reason for the disparity when it comes to less garda on our streets is the move for some to specialist units that had to be resourced post-Covid 19. These included drug units, roads policing units, regional cyber crime units and armed support units.

“Each of these specialist units provides support to frontline stations and community engagement areas,” said a garda spokesperson, “which is a key principle of the operating model.”

They also pointed out that there are currently 625 recruits in training at the garda college in Templemore, Co Tipperary. “Garda resources and personnel allocations are continually reviewed and adjusted in line with community needs.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice added that high-visibility policing in cities and towns is a key priority for Minister Jim O’Callaghan, stating, “Increased Garda recruitment and appropriate civilianisation where possible is ongoing to achieve this. The overall Garda Workforce has increased from 15,980 in 2016 to 18,276 in 2026.”

With, they say, 14,529 gardaí working across the State at the end of February, another 15,000 are expected within the year, bringing the grand total to its highest level ever.

“Funding allocated to An Garda Síochána has increased by over €500m since 2020, bringing the total 2026 Budget to €2.74 billion. This will fund the recruitment of up to 1,000 new Gardaí, 200 more Garda staff and a doubling of the Garda Reserve to over 600 across this year.

“Following the effective closure of the Garda College during Covid, it took time for recruitment to return to previous levels,” the Department continued. “However, recruitment is now gaining real momentum; 11,100 applications to join An Garda Síochána were received in 2025 and cohorts of over 200 trainees are now entering Templemore every quarter. 223 trainees entered Templemore in November.

“This was the largest intake to Templemore since 2014 and brought the total number of trainees to enter Templemore in 2025 to 794, the largest since 2018. In the first intake of this year, another 215 recruits entered Templemore.”

Not that any of that is much help to anyone around here foolish enough to be a victim of a crime after 6pm, when the Greystones garda station shuts up shop and all calls for immediate help are forwarded to Bray.

We have reached out to the Greystones Garda Station by way of the Garda Press Office for comment.