(),íochá more commonly referred to as the Gardaí (Guards), is the police force of the Republic of Ireland. The service is headed by the Commissioner who is appointed by the Irish Government. Its headquarters are located in Phoenix Park in Dublin.
Terminology
The old English language name of the force was the Civic Guard, but this title is no longer used. Garda Síochána na hÉireann is usually rendered as the "Guardian of the Peace of Ireland" or the "Guardians of the Peace (of Ireland)".
The full official title of the force is rarely used in speech. It is known, in decreasing order of formality, as ( pronounced ); the ; the (in the preceding names, "guard" is a collective noun, like police); the ( [GAR-DEE]; "guards", plural); or the Guards.
An individual officer is also called a (plural ), or, informally, a guard. A police station is called a station. is also the lowest rank within the force, also used as a title (e.g. " John Murphy"), analogous to the British term "constable" or the American "officer" ("deputy/trooper/etc."). "Guard" is the most common form of address used by members of the public speaking to a garda on duty. A female officer was once officially referred to as a (; "female guard"; plural ). This term was abolished in 1990, but is still used colloquially in place of the now gender-neutral .
Organisation
The force is headed by the Commissioner. Immediately below him are two Deputy Commissioners, one in charge of "Operations" and the other "Strategy and Change Management". The Chief Administrative Officer has responsibility for resource management (personnel, finance, ICT and accommodation) has the same rank as a Deputy Commissioner. There are twelve Assistant Commissioners: one for each of the six geographical Regions, and the remainder dealing with various national support functions. At an equivalent or near-equivalent level to the Assistant Commissioners are the positions of Chief Medical Officer, Executive Director of ICT and Executive Director of Finance.
The six geographical "Assistant Commissioners" command the six "Garda Force Regions", which are currently: Dublin Metropolitan Eastern Northern Southern South-Eastern Western
Reporting to the Assistant Commissioners are about 50 Chief Superintendents, about half of whom supervise what are called Divisions. Each Division contains a number of Districts, each commanded by a Superintendent assisted by a team of Inspectors. Each District contains a number of Subdistricts, which are usually commanded by Sergeants.
Usually each Subdistrict contains only one Garda station. A different number of are based at each station depending on its importance. Most of these stations employ the basic rank of Garda, which was referred to as the rank of Guard until 1972. The most junior members of the force are students, whose duties can vary depending on their training progress. They are often have clerical duties, as part of their extra curricular studies.
The Garda organisation also has over 2,500 civilian support staff covering areas such as human resources, occupational health services, finance and procurement, internal audit, IT and telecommunications, accommodation and fleet management, scenes-of-crime support, research and analysis, training and general administration. The figure also includes industrial staff such as traffic wardens, drivers and cleaners. It is ongoing government policy to bring the level of non officer support in the organisation up to international standards - thus enhancing its capacity and expertise in a range of specialist and administrative functions, and releasing more of its police officers for core operational duties.
Reserve Gardaí
The Garda Síochána Act 2005 provided for the establishment of a Garda Reserve, consisting of 4,000, to assist the force in performing its functions, and supplement the work of members of the Garda Síochána.
The job of the Garda Reserve is "to be a source of local strength and knowledge". Reservists carry out duties decided by the Garda Commissioner and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. With reduced training, these duties and powers must be operated under the supervision of regular members of the Force, and are also limited from those of regular members.
As of November 2010 there are 850 graduated Garda Reserve, and another 148 in further training, the first batch of 36 Garda Reserves graduated on 15 December 2006 at the Garda College, in Templemore.