Hundreds Of Officers Leaving Gardaí

A considerable number of garda left the force this year and the final number even could increase further before the budget is announced next month.

Exactly 708 have already retired from or have declared their intention to do so soon.

This figure represents an important loss to the force because of valuable experience of a lot of senior investigators who will be leaving.

This year, the numbers of retirements are the highest in all ranks in the past 13 years: last year were only 259 and in 2007 were 184.

Moreover, they are around treble the retirement levels in recent years.

Most of the current retired people are leaving early to avoid possible taxation on pension lump sums, loss of allowances and pay cuts in the budget.

They are three assistant commissioners, 12 chief superintendents, 26 superintendents, 31 inspectors, 166 sergeants and 466 garda officers.

The majority of the retirements are voluntary and the rest are on age grounds (gardaí can retire early if they have completed 30 years of service and have reached the age of 50).

From 1997 to 2009, 8,890 people have been recruited into the gardaí, while 4,256 people have taken retirement.

However, during 2009, just 200 people were recruited into the force and it was the last recruitment for the time being due to the moratorium on hiring in the public service.

This year, top layers of the force have been badly hit by these retirements, with losses like Assistant Commissioner (AC) rank, AC Eddie Rock, Head of the Garda Traffic Corps, of AC Al McHugh, from the Dublin Metropolitan Region (DMR), and AC Mick McCarthy, in charge of Crime and Security.

At chief superintendent rank, retirements have affected men from the specialist national units and also from Mayo, Limerick and Cork, besides the three chiefs of Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park.

The detective branch at superintendent level has been hard hit, with recent retirements as Michael Byrne, in the Garda Technical Bureau, John Mulligan in DMR East and Jim Browne in Limerick.

(CL/BMcC)