Mr. P. J. Stone:

Any member of Garda rank has the facility to claim any of the allowances in there. The other ones the Deputy alluded to would not refer to Garda by rank and I hope I am not misleading the Deputy in that. If one looks at Mr. McCarthy's report and the analysis he conducted at the time, he saw that there were 54 allowances. I accept the point made by the Commissioner. It is a bit like legislation in that it is on the Statute Book but whether it is utilised is the question. If we were to look at that for the purposes of tidying up those allowances, this could reduce them but would effectively not change or alter them. It is not about trying to con people. I am merely making the point that there is a notion out there that gardaí are in receipt of 108 allowances. Those are the allowances that are applicable to members of the Garda Síochána I represent.