Garda Recruitment- The Waiting to Apply Room

eroo

From my own view point, apply for the Garda Reserve. 1. You will find out if you want a full time career in AGS or not, because the Reserve will show the real side to it all as opposed to blue lights and smiles you get with PR! 2. It is genuine experience IF you are willing to learn. Who would you rather have? A person with a degree in Art or, a Reserve with 2-3 years operational experience with the basics done (i.e. Tetra, ASP, Pepper Spray courses etc)?

The most important thing is to never stop learning imo.

EDIT: Well done on the progress made so far!

Delancey

eroo wrote: »

From my own view point, apply for the Garda Reserve. 1. You will find out if you want a full time career in AGS or not, because the Reserve will show the real side to it all as opposed to blue lights and smiles you get with PR! 2. It is genuine experience IF you are willing to learn. Who would you rather have? A person with a degree in Art or, a Reserve with 2-3 years operational experience with the basics done (i.e. Tetra, ASP, Pepper Spray courses etc)?

The most important thing is to never stop learning imo.

EDIT: Well done on the progress made so far!

+ 1 . I have never been able to understand the resistance of some people to joining the Reserve and who otherwise claim to be '' dying '' to get into the Gardai

Shows a good interest in the job and may well count for a lot at interview stage.

thekopend

DazMarz wrote: »

Any advice on other things I could do to add to my C.V. (which is already pretty impressive; not to sound big-headed, but it is) that would be a boon to my chances when the next recruitment comes around?

some sort of community work would be valuable. i myself am a leader in the local youth club, iv done a few courses with regard to dealing with children and also drug awareness talks on signs/symptoms and how to detect. its very satisfactory to be involved in. its also gives a good insight and knowledge into the youth of today which is important in the role of a garda i would imagine.

just a bit of reading, cuts are taking affect in a bad way.http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/transport-cuts-may-enforce-private-sponsorship-of-garda-cars-170342.html

just wondering are the reserve still recruiting and for how long more.?

eroo

They are alright but I can't see it continuing after next year, as funds will be seriously cut back. With full time numbers going down, it will make it easier for the Govt to reach a reserve force 10% the size of full time force.

tweedledee

Can't wait to see Garda cars with "Burger King" or "Spar" painted on em.Maybe the gov will get em to deliver pizzas too. These cuts ain't funny any more. Its a scandal that the government wants private business to "sponsor" Garda cars!!!!!!!!!!!!! FFS!!!!!:mad::mad::mad:

senordingdong

tweedledee wrote: »

Can't wait to see Garda cars with "Burger King" or "Spar" painted on em.Maybe the gov will get em to deliver pizzas too. These cuts ain't funny any more. Its a scandal that the government wants private business to "sponsor" Garda cars!!!!!!!!!!!!! FFS!!!!!:mad::mad::mad:

Indeed.
But why does the car have to be decommissioned after 300,000km? Surely it would be cheaper to hire a good quality, highly trained mechanic to keep them in working order. Particularly in this economic climate.

I can't believe that they won't hire new Gardaí yet every day I see so many, brand spanking new 2011 registered Garda vehicles.

Delancey

senordingdong wrote: »

Indeed.
But why does the car have to be decommissioned after 300,000km? Surely it would be cheaper to hire a good quality, highly trained mechanic to keep them in working order. Particularly in this economic climate.

I can't believe that they won't hire new Gardaí yet every day I see so many, brand spanking new 2011 registered Garda vehicles.

TBH the quality , highly trained mechanic will be working non-stop to keep a car with 300,000 kms on the road , given the mileage/abuse Garda cars suffer such a vehicle would become a garage queen and spend more time in repair than service.

thekopend

it would not be feasible, the engine at 300,000kms giving its role deffinately has its work done they only last so long, would be well wore by then esp with high revving and all that. nakerd engine pluse other parts goin often = not worth the bother. id say some cars are ready for the scrap even before 300,000kms.
the new cars where essential, sure how could gardai do there job if they dont have adequate vehicles.

eroo

senordingdong wrote: »

Indeed.
But why does the car have to be decommissioned after 300,000km? Surely it would be cheaper to hire a good quality, highly trained mechanic to keep them in working order. Particularly in this economic climate.

I can't believe that they won't hire new Gardaí yet every day I see so many, brand spanking new 2011 registered Garda vehicles.

If I'm not mistaken there were only 150 new cars bought and believe me they were badly needed. They have a proper lights system with rear reds, boot lights etc. To try and keep a car with 300,000km on the road would be just plain dangerous, and it would never be out because it would spend most of it's time in the garage!

StreetAngel

Good to see another thread set up, fair play! i think there's loads of people reading this for any more info, just a pity that there's nothing much being said by the powers that be at the moment! I'v heard (...i think it was on the radio, i hardly remember) that before the end of the year, there should be a sizeable uptake on retirement as member's wont be risking any further cuts to the lumpsum....maybe there'll be more news as soon as that happens? its so tough waiting when there isnt even the odd rumour circulating anymore!!! :O

eroo

Unfortunately there wont be a mass exodus Street Angel. There are quite a lot of Gardai eligble to retire but most probably wont due to children living at home or going to college, mortgage etc

StreetAngel

Yeah maybe it's wishful thinking...just hoping that any bit of movement could get things going again....I know it'll be a looonnng process though!

senordingdong

I disagree. I see no reason why a car would be good at 299,999 km, but bad at 300,000 km.
Like I said, if a good mechanic was taking care of them.

Didn't the man responsible for maintenance of ministerial cars make a similar point before FG revoked them?

eroo

senordingdong wrote: »

I disagree. I see no reason why a car would be good at 299,999 km, but bad at 300,000 km.
Like I said, if a good mechanic was taking care of them.

Didn't the man responsible for maintenance of ministerial cars make a similar point before FG revoked them?

The limit is set for health and safety reasons, it doesn't mean the car is extremely dangerous to drive rather it's just reaching the end of it's lifespan. Patrol cars are put through so much wear and tare that you would end up having to buy in parts regurarly for it. I wouldn't want to be in a patrol car with 300,000km+ on a regular basis!

EDIT: We are going a fair bit off topic so I'm going to leave that issue alone!

Back on topic, we should have an idea of the Govt's intentions at the end of the month with their 3 year plan.

spartacus 109

Hi lads, I'm 19 left Ireland in August to go looking for work abroad, my ambition has always been to be a member of AGS to serve my country and the like so obviously I'm hoping to come back at some point, what I'm wondering is would anyone have an estimate of how long the moratorium is going to last? Obviously there is no way to know for sure but many people have told me that I could be 24 or 25 by the time they start recruiting again is there any truth to this in ye're opinion?

Thanks.

P.O.S

Spartacus,I'll try to answer your query as best I can.The more gardai that hand in their notice before end of this month the better for those of us with aspirations to join the force.My uncle is an Inspector and it is his belief that the bulk of gardai over 50 will retire,he himself cant as he's not 50 for another few years.He told me that once he turns 50 he's retiring,his work load is increasing and pay decreasing.He enquired amongst colleagues when there may be new campaign,some said 2014 others 2016..bottom line no-one knows.I told him that it was my opinion that there would be a campaign in 2014 because at that point it would be six/seven years since last campaign but as he said they aren't going to have a campaign just for the sake of having one.

AFAIK during acclerated recruitment 7000 gardai were recruited- my uncle said he's not sure but he reckons 1000-1200 were recruited in the ten years prior to accelerated recruitment which only averages 100-120 a year.Whenever we do have a recruitment campaign I wonder how long it will to the next one after that,hope your travels are going well
On the plus side,there will definetly be a campaign before you turn 35!

spartacus 109

Thanks very much for the info P.O.S I suppose all we can do is hope that things start improving a bit.. I also have one more question is there any courses or such that I could do that would stand to me when I eventually do get to apply?
Thanks.

P.O.S

spartacus 109 wrote: »

Thanks very much for the info P.O.S I suppose all we can do is hope that things start improving a bit.. I also have one more question is there any courses or such that I could do that would stand to me when I eventually do get to apply?
Thanks.

Have a look at applying to AGS section,it will answer alot of your questions.You could practise aptitude tests but the type of questions they ask might change whenever a new campaign starts..

Beffy

I must say I feel for all the people waiting patiently with their lives on hold somewhat waiting for recruitment to start up again. Put the head down, train up in courses that would give you an edge, get involved in the community & think about joining the Garda reserve. That should give you the best chance when recruitment comes around again. I wouldn't worry too much about the age. I joined when I was 26, I was worried i'd be the oldest one there. Not a hope! Plenty of 35 year olds to keep me from feeling old.

WilcoOut

could be a long long time before a recruitment campaign starts up

its costly

even processing those in waiting will be costly

in my opinion, a much cheaper option available to the dept of justice is to promote reserve gardai and put em through the college

the least as of us can do is upskill and make sure we tick all the boxes that the gardai require

licence, ecdl, first aid, community work, team sports, volunteerism etc

happy upskilling people!

thekopend

WilcoOut wrote: »

in my opinion, a much cheaper option available to the dept of justice is to promote reserve gardai and put em through the college

they would have to go through same training in place, so it makes no difference if ur a reserve or not, unless u change the training which is not worth doing for 500 or so reserves.!!!!

C-J

Well said kopend, they'd have to go through the same training, not 'okay lads sure we'll skip a couple of chapters to save time and money'. To think otherwise is ridiculous!! The costs of training would be the same whether youre a rocket scientist or have scraped your leaving cert.

Hill St Blue

C-J wrote: »

Well said kopend, they'd have to go through the same training, not 'okay lads sure we'll skip a couple of chapters to save time and money'. To think otherwise is ridiculous!! The costs of training would be the same whether youre a rocket scientist or have scraped your leaving cert.

Yeah, you're right CJ, the training would cost the same regardless, but by recruiting internally, they would save a lot of money on staging a public recruitment campaign that would attract tens of thousands of applicants (obviously there would have to be the same aptitude test for GR's who would be eligible to apply for the full time, but the number of applicants would be far smaller and full background checks, medicals and interviews have already been done for anyone who is in the GR.) I'm told a few Police Forces (inc The Met in London) have gone down this recruitment route. Anyhoo, since there's no word of this happening here, it's just idle speculation, but there's no doubt that a few bob would be saved this way.

C-J

I'm talking about those on the panel who have everything completed, the only extra cost will be to do physicals as we have been told by the minister a doctors letter will suffice in most cases. So there will be minimum costs involved here, less in fact than recruiting reserves who will have to undergo more rigorous background checks than those previously done, physicals and medicals.

P.O.S

When there is a new recruitment campaign,everyone that meets the requirements will be able to apply reserve or not.even if they only were to recruit from reserves in future there will be 1300 of them maybe next year...they wont even recruit near 1300 on top of the panel in the next 10-15 years!!!
that's been realistic not negative..I like everyone here wishes that there will be a new campaign asap

thekopend

just thinking about it there, i would think that if all/most of the reserves were to become full time would that not contradict the point of the reserves. the idea was to save money as they are not paid, but if money is spent to train them up then 1-5 years later they join full time and then have to be paid anyway. so that raises the question is it worth spending all the money to train them up if they only last a few years as a reserve, if majority leave and have to be replaced by training more reserves who could then do the same thing again. thats called a money pit folks.

ideally the idea was to save money by training them up and then getting years of free service from them witch pays in the long run, but if there not in it for the long run it dont pay. thats why recruiting reserves above everyone else is pointless and stupid, the last thing they want is everyone in the reserve to walk into full time. "come on in lads we spent millions on ye for a few years but ye were worth it" i dont think so.
might as well train and pay full time gardai if thats the case

not a dig on any of the reserves but it has to be seen from this point of view too.

Hill St Blue

C-J wrote: »

I'm talking about those on the panel who have everything completed, the only extra cost will be to do physicals as we have been told by the minister a doctors letter will suffice in most cases. So there will be minimum costs involved here, less in fact than recruiting reserves who will have to undergo more rigorous background checks than those previously done, physicals and medicals.

Ah yeah, CJ, that goes without saying...those already on the panel (who are already in line to go into T'more next) will only need (maybe) to re-do physicals / medicals. Since these folks were part of the last recruitment campaign costs, and the money has essentially been spent on getting them this far in the process, and they're next on the list.
What I'm talking about, is an option to save money on the next new recruitment campaign (once more, what I'm saying is a purely hypothetical scenario, but just throwing it into the mix for discussion purposes!)
As an aside by the way (not being picky...just a point of order) there are no such things as 'more rigorous background checks' for full timers as opposed to Reserves. The background checks completed are exactly the same (which in fairness makes sense...you can't have half, or 75% vetted people in uniform!)

Hill St Blue

thekopend wrote: »

just thinking about it there, i would think that if all/most of the reserves were to become full time would that not contradict the point of the reserves. the idea was to save money as they are not paid, but if money is spent to train them up then 1-5 years later they join full time and then have to be paid anyway. so that raises the question is it worth spending all the money to train them up if they only last a few years as a reserve, if majority leave and have to be replaced by training more reserves who could then do the same thing again. thats called a money pit folks.

ideally the idea was to save money by training them up and then getting years of free service from them witch pays in the long run, but if there not in it for the long run it dont pay. thats why recruiting reserves above everyone else is pointless and stupid, the last thing they want is everyone in the reserve to walk into full time. "come on in lads we spent millions on ye for a few years but ye were worth it" i dont think so.
might as well train and pay full time gardai if thats the case

not a dig on any of the reserves but it has to be seen from this point of view too.

Fair point thekopend, but in reality there will always be folk leaving the Reserves to join the full time, so there'll always be an ebb and flow of numbers leaving who are replaced by fresh Reserves...that's the transient nature of having a Reserve I guess. I don't see it as a money pit or anything, because the State still gets value for money on it's investment, and the amount of man hours returned by Reserves outweighs costs (almost free labour if you will!) From a cold hard business point of view, that certantly makes the Reserve concept worth it.
Sometimes people seem to forget that a huge percentage of Reserves are waiting to become full-time Gardai, meet all the elegibility requirements and will be applying throughout future campaigns. They join the Reserves in order to gain an insight into the workings of AGS, to see if it suits them as a future career or for purely altruistic reasons (everyone would have their own combonation of reasons I guess.) When the Reserves eventually meet their 10% quota of 1300, it's not as if those 1300 will always remain Reserves because 'x' amount of money has been spent on them...some will remain Reserves, some will become full time Gardai and some will simply retire.

eroo

C-J wrote: »

I'm talking about those on the panel who have everything completed, the only extra cost will be to do physicals as we have been told by the minister a doctors letter will suffice in most cases. So there will be minimum costs involved here, less in fact than recruiting reserves who will have to undergo more rigorous background checks than those previously done, physicals and medicals.

More rigourous background checks? Reserves are members of An Garda Siochana and must meet the same security requirements.

Anyone waiting to apply should apply for the Reserves first to see if the Gardai actually suits them or if it is what they expected imo. In the future, recruiting Reserves in an accelerated process would be a very good idea for the following reasons:

1. No need to re-do ASP, Tetra, Pepper Spray courses

2. Reserves are familiar with the job, something most applicants are not. Reserves will know themselves if the job is for them or not, whereas others may not like it after they realise it's not like what most people think. This would mean they would be less likely to drop out during training or after graduation, after the Govt having spent tens of thousands of euro on their training.

3. No need to issue new uniform as Reserves already have full issue; only change required is reg no. and shoulder no. when attested.

4. No need to do aptitude tests; a letter from his/her unit Sgt and Inspector would suffice, either recommending or not recommending them for the role of Garda. i.e. they have either shown or not shown the aptitude to do the job

The Met in London are going down the route of recruiting solely from their PCSO's and Special Constables. Their next campaign will be 50% in house recruited, 50% public. After that it is 100% internal. IMO this is the way it should be over here for next campaign; 500 places to be filled over 2-3 years filled by 250 former Reserves and 250 from the public. Reserve recruitment hasn't stopped so those who apply for role of Garda would be easily replaced.

But this is just my view, and is why I think anyone waiting to apply should join the Reserves first. Mandatory service as a GR would cut down the numbers of trainee Gardai who drop out during training or after Graduation.

eroo

tweedledee wrote: »

To join fulltime service there are educational requirements. To join the reserves the requirements are a lot lower, thats all I meant.

In fairness, this is the waiting to apply thread. There is already a thread for 'advantges/disadvantages of joining Reserve before Full Time AGS' so I'd be happy to answer if you post in there.

If not, Geri Boyle might be around with her spanking stick! (She doesn't need an excuse to use it;):D)