DUBLIN, IRELAND

NEW IMMIGRANTS to Ireland will have to serve two years in the country’s police force, An Garda Siochana, prior to being accepted as residents, if a new proposal comes into effect.

The Guards, as the Irish police are commonly known, have seen their numbers continue to diminish over the years, so much so that their staffing levels are now far below the 15 to 18,000 or so officers said to be required to police the EU state.

“Ironically, the cost of the smaller force is going up because the officers who are left are having to be paid huge amounts of overtime to fill the holes left by their departing colleagues,” says policing analyst Reinhard Beria of the Truncheon Institute in London.

The plan to conscript immigrants into An Garda Siochana is seen as a win-win for both policing and immigration in Ireland.

“Tent villages populated by asylum seekers and others are a national embarrassment,” according to Hermann Akbar O’Reilly of the Palestine-Judenrein Committee. “This idea might be just the solution to the bottleneck of immigrants causing so much trouble in Ireland. And, if it works, sure we know of thousands of Hamas fighters who would make terrific gardai if allowed refugee status in this country.”