Mr. Martin Callinan:

I thought I had already done that but to recap, it will never be the situation that we intend to lose contact with the community. In areas where gardaí were located we will still have points of contact to make sure the policing service we provide will be maintained. That is key. It is indispensable to the service we provide. We are of the community and with the community and that will always be the case.

The Deputy is referring to gardaí operating locally and hearing things. I hope the type of interaction we have had with the public continues. We are involved at every level in sports clubs, communities and voluntary bodies over and above our daily work, and that will continue. We need to address people travelling around the country committing crimes. We need to tackle these people and provide a safer community by doing that. It is not always possible in the context of the current system we are operating. Smarter policing includes intelligence-led operations and pin-mapping where crimes occur. There must be resources available to deal with the situation. We will not always have a garda or two in a particular station at particular times. Criminals have become more mobile and I and others have referred to increased efficiency with transport and communications. The criminal fraternity is adept at taking full advantage. This is about providing an effective policing service. We are at one with the Deputy in respect of the matters he raised as a public representative. We are alive to the issues and there is no one with greater concern about how the Garda Síochána is run than me and my senior colleagues.

We will always have issues, tension and discussions or arguments between management and associations. Why would it be any other way? We cannot always agree to have the associations sitting beside us when we are dealing with serious decisions affecting how we do our business. Once the decisions are made, we are certainly obliged to sit down with the associations and work out the niceties of how we will implement the decisions. That is where the dialogue, discussion and argument commences. We will run that in parallel with the discussions with the communities where the stations are closing.