Galway is being left behind in the allocation of Garda resources, Independent by-election candidate Cllr. Thomas Welby has claimed.
He highlighted the fact that just a single new recruit has been sent to Galway so far this year, out of a total of 167 Probationer Gardaí to emerge from the training college in Templemore.
“Outside of Dublin, the area covered by the Galway Garda Division is the second most populated of all the Garda Divisions in the country, yet it appears to be treated as the poor relation when it comes to allocating resources to it,” he said.
“This has been going on for years, at a time when the population of Galway City and County is showing rapid growth, and it’s reflected in the fact that Galway has currently fewer Gardaí in relation to its population than 17 of the 28 divisions.
“There is currently a total of 618 Gardaí in the Galway Division, which is more than 100 fewer than Cork City, for instance, which has a population that’s just marginally ahead of Galway. “And the Limerick Division has seen its numbers increase by 30 in the past year, while Galway’s has only gone up by eight – and those Galway figures include the officers working out of the Northern and Western Regional HQ in Renmore, servicing a broad area.”
Cllr. Welby said that the most telling figures were in the allocations of Probationer Gardaí when they come out of Templemore.
“So far this year, only one such new recruit out of 167 has been sent to Galway, the lowest allocation in the whole country. In the past five years, just 31 of a total of 2,124 were allocated to the Galway Division, and if you go back further, you’ll see that in the ten years from 2015 to 2025, the Galway Division had just 94 out of 5,612 probationer Gardaí allocated to it.
“This level of allocation is totally out of line with the population of the Galway Division, compared with the vast majority of other Garda Divisions. This increases the difficulty in providing proper security for a rapidly growing population, in the city in particular, and makes the job harder for those Gardaí who are doing their level best to serve and protect the community,” He said, adding that we are facing an increasingly complex battle against crime, particularly in the area of online fraud.
“Last year, there was a 73% increase in overall fraud in Galway City and County, due mainly to online, phone or text scams, according to the crime stats for 2025. “I have written to the Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan, pointing out the inequity of the allocations of new Gardaí and urging him to ensure that when the next tranche of trainees leave Templemore, a fairer proportion is sent to Galway,” concluded Cllr. Welby.
