Mr. Martin Callinan:

I thank the Deputy for his question. We are painfully conscious of all of the sensitivities around station closures. Indeed, just last week we had the bi-annual commissioners' conference in Templemore, where I assembled all of my senior command, from chief superintendent up, sworn and non-sworn. It was a two-day conference and the first day was largely occupied by the issue of station closures and the type of policing service that we could provide into the future when X number of stations would close. The second day was spent dealing with the corporate strategy. As members will know, we are obliged under the Garda Síochána Act to provide a three-year corporate strategy and within that, an annual policing plan that services each individual year of the strategy until it is completed. Any change to a district, division or boundary of the Garda Síochána must to be included in the annual policing plan and those plans and the corporate strategy are placed before the Houses of the Oireachtas. That is the legal aspect of the issue.

Implicit in all of the discussions is how policing will look into the future with reduced resources, both financial and human. Obviously, we have given careful consideration to a number of stations that have closed already and the closures that will happen in the new year. We have, from the centre, pushed out through the organisation, through the assistant commissioners, down through the chief superintendents, down to the ground, to involve as many stakeholders as possible in the discussion as to what stations might usefully be subsumed into the station closure programme. That has filtered all the way back up and we are at an advanced stage of planning now. I will be in a position in the coming weeks to provide the Minister with my recommendations with regard to closure.

However, the points raised by the Deputy concerning the programme and the sensitivities that are involved were very much on our minds when we were discussing the topic over the last few days. Central to it is communication both with the public and with our own organisation when we have established what stations are going to close. Typically, we were discussing the type of service that will be available to communities in the areas where the stations will close and what that service will look like after closure. The plan has always been to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation and is not, as I have indicated previously, a cost-saving exercise for the State, although there will obviously be savings. I am on the record as indicating that somewhere between €2,500 and €4,000 would be a typical maintenance bill for stations, so that money will be saved. However, in the overall context, it is not about savings but about providing a blueprint for future policing. That is what we are aiming for and I am absolutely subscribed, to the last scintilla, to the points raised by the Deputy regarding communication. However, before we get there we must establish which stations it may be appropriate to close.

A lot of this work is running in tandem with the new rostering arrangements and undoubtedly there will be a requirement to cluster some resources in order to provide the service. I was clear in saying to my officers that I did not want a situation to arise in which, if a particular Garda station was generally open in a particular area for a particular number of hours in a week, we would not match that service in that area at those times. Then, beyond that, we must have a clear and succinct policing plan to follow the various trends, particularly in the area of crime, and meet the challenge of reducing crime in those areas. Communication is very much a part of our programme.