Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has encouraged those from “minority and new communities” to apply for hundreds of new Garda jobs being offered under a fresh round of recruitment.

“In particular, I urge members of minority and new communities to consider applying so that the membership of An Garda Síochána will reflect the diverse communities that it serves,” she said.

Since Garda recruitment resumed in recent years after being halted under the public sector recruitment moratorium, the level of applicants from ethnic minority groups has been lower than 3 per cent; a steep decline over a decade.

Of the 18,435 applicants who took the first stage of tests during two years to join the Garda under the first wave of recommenced recruitment, only 418 - about 2.3 per cent - said they were from an ethnic minority background, according to the Public Appointments Service.

By contrast, 4,926 people took the initial exams in 2005 and 734 were non-Irish - almost 15 per cent. For both years, about 20 per cent did not give their backgrounds.

Announcing the opening of the latest round of recruitment this morning, Ms Fitzgerald said for the Government to meet its pledge to increase the number of gardaí to 15,000 by 2020, some 3,200 recruits needed to be hired.

The strength of the force fell below 13,000 for a period; a development senior Garda officers said diminished the standard of policing offered in the Republic.

And while recent recruitment has brought numbers back over 13,000, retirements mean approximately 3,200 new gardaí will be required to hit the 15,000 target.

The number of recruits set to be taken on each year during the four-year period has not been set out. It was expected to rise incrementally as the economy recovers.

The recruitment campaign is beginning at a time when the biggest staff organisation in the force, the Garda Representative Association, is balloting its members on the possibility of industrial action.

The association, which represents more than 10,000 rank and file gardai, is dissatisfied with the pay and conditions.

Specifically the association is unhappy at the withholding of increments from its members because it had not signed up for the Lansdowne Rd Agreement.

The recruitment drive announced on Thursday, which was expected and is part of the Government’s previously announced long term plans, comes exactly two years after the Garda College, Templemore, Co Tipperary, was reopened.

Since then 534 recruits have been trained and attested and are serving in the communities and a further 150 are due to graduate later this year.

Those who were successful in the last recruitment campaign which began last November will continue to be called to take up their places in Templemore as part of new intakes of recruits into the college until the middle of next year.

And next summer the first batch of successful candidates from the campaign launched this morning will take up their places in Templemore.

There is a long lead-in time from a recruitment campaign being launched and the successful candidates entering the college because the recruitment process involves a number of elements including, interviews and aptitude testing.

Ms Fitzgerald said the Garda force was working hard to ensure there was no “diminution in the quality of its training programme” while recruitment was being ramped up.

“I welcome the detailed planning process that the Commissioner and her team have in place to ensure the delivery of increased numbers of gardaí without any compromise on the quality of those recruited or the training programme,” she said.