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Garda Siochána
Garda Síochána in relation to equal opportunities between male and female members of the Irish Police force.
The Research
In 1969 the first women entered An Garda Síochána, the Irish national police service. Today officially there are no jobs within the Force that a woman cannot do. Women are joining the Force in greater numbers than ever before. But to what extent do women have equal chances of promotion to men? And whatever the objective statistical answer to that may be, do women feel they face greater obstacles to promotion than men? And what about men: do they feel threatened by this advance of women? Do they even feel that equal opportunities now means unfair advantages for women?
To find out answers to questions like these, in 1999 An Garda Síochána commissioned the Employment Research Centre of TCD to analyse equal opportunities between women and men in An Garda Síochána. This was the first major study of its kind in Ireland and was funded by the NOW (New Opportunities for Women) programme of the European Union. The research began with semi-structured interviews with a small number of number of gardai from all ranks to familiarise the researchers with the workings of the Force.
The main research involved three forms of data:
- a series of semi-structured interviews covering the experiences of male and female gardai and sergeants working in different areas using strategic sampling.
- a self-report questionnaire completed by a random sample of gardai (a total of 1019 questionnaires sent out, 55% were eventually returned).
- some basic stastical information (rank, age, gender, length of service etc) on all members of the Force.
Both the personnel information and the postal survey were completely anonymous and the research team had no access to individual names.
We ended the research with two focus group discussions, one with male and one with female guards. In the course of the project we also interviewed representatives of all the representative associations and examined the internal garda regulations.
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ERC Team
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