Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty is that the Minister and the Government of the day allocate a budget to the Commissioner and tells him to make the most of it. The Commissioner must adapt and present a plan based on the budget. The Commissioner, the deputy commissioner and the assistant commissioners present have a responsibility to present to various people that the Garda Síochána has the capacity to respond to crime and protect our communities. I fully respect that but the problem is the Garda Representative Association, representing a huge proportion of the gardaí we meet, is telling us that resources are depleted and that gardaí do not have the capacity they used to have to respond to crime. I am sure the Commissioner has heard the stories and we have heard the evidence of it across counties. When the Garda Representative Association speaks to its counterparts in Britain, which has also undergone the process of closing down stations, they report back that it has not worked in Britain and that the police force there has lost contact with the communities and has lost the special relationship between the local constable and the areas. Would the Commissioner be implementing these changes in rosters, which are referred to as smart policing, and doing everything he has done if he did not face cutbacks to his budget?