"The podcast made contact directly saying they had a weekly audience reach of half a million people, a lot of whom "are young." An email said: "Over the years, we've received a number of emails from our young listeners, particularly young men, expressing interest in joining the guards. "I was wondering if you'd have a young guard that would be available for interview to come down ... to chat about their work, a day in the life, and the training process.""
"These included "what kind of abuse do you get on the street" and "how do you react when confronted with this abuse". Another said: "What's the part of the job that you dread the most?" An email also listed one question, which said: "When someone comes into the station, do you have to take every complaint serious?" Others said, "do you like the new uniform?" and "checkpoints - how do they work? What are you looking for out there?""
The 2 Johnnies were paid €25,000 in taxpayer funds for a similar programme involving the Irish Prison Service this summer. Internal An Garda records detail a different arrangement for their podcast about joining the police earlier this year. The podcast claimed a weekly audience of half a million, many young, and requested a young Garda for an interview about work and training. Gardaí agreed to facilitate the podcast once their recruitment competition was live and handpicked recent graduates already featured on the Garda College Facebook page as nominees. The 2 Johnnies supplied suggested talking points about street abuse, reactions, job fears, complaints, uniforms, checkpoints and common crimes.
Read at Irish Independent
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