The Garda Commissioner will advertise for new Garda recruits in the national newspapers in the coming weeks, the Minister for Justice has told the Dáil.
Mr McDowell said the recruitment campaign designed to increase the strength of the force under a recently announced plan will lead to "record numbers" being taken on as recruits.
Some 274 recruits would be taken into a newly extended Garda training college in Templemore each quarter, bringing the strength of the Garda Síochána to 14,000 as early as 2006, Mr McDowell said.
Mr McDowell said the existing Garda training college would be extended to make it a four-storey building, with new facilities such as a gym available to trainee gardaí.
The Minister dismissed the doubts expressed by Opposition parties that the target of a 14,000-strong force could be achieved and said he would bring their spokespersons to the opening of the new college. "It will be achieved," he insisted.
Mr McDowell also rejected calls by Mr Joe Costello of the Labour Party to open a Garda training college as a "seventh faculty" in the new Grangegorman complex.
The Dáil had earlier debated the Bill on the establishment of the Grangegorman Development Agency, to oversee the development of the massive central Dublin site as a focus for education, health and other facilities.
Mr McDowell said Templemore was a "premier" training institution and he rejected the suggestion that gardaí were in some way isolated by not being in a Dublin setting.
Mr McDowell also told the Opposition spokesmen he "bitterly" resented remarks made that derided the activities of trainee gardaí.