Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Courts Service has a range of properties and I do not have the rent figures for all of them. We will provide the Deputy with the information.

With regard to early retirement, there is as much planning as can be done. It is genuinely impossible to predict how many members of the force will retire in any one year. There has been considerable variance year in, year out. All that can be done and all any Minister responsible for justice has done is estimate the approximate amount needed and deal with unanticipated retirements as they arise. The Deputy will recall that at the end of February there was an incentivised retirement scheme and that those who retired were not affected by wage or pension changes. Some members of the force might not have retired had there not been such a scheme making it advantageous to retire by the end of last February. This would have had an impact on the figures. There is no such scheme in place. The Deputy will have found that the Garda Commissioner is not in a position to state definitively how many members will retire in a particular year.

With regard to Garda vehicles, there is a planning issue.

We currently have the same approximate number of vehicles as the Garda had at the height of the Celtic tiger in 2007. There is this perception that there has been a collapse in the numbers. There are certainly some further vehicles that will be taken out of commission in 2013. While I cannot reveal budgetary discussions, I can assure Deputies that there will be funding available to purchase Garda cars in 2013. This funding should meet the needs in 2013. That is due to the careful budgetary process that has been undertaken and these arrangements will become known in the not-too-distant future. Deputies will be quite happy with these arrangements.

I welcome constructive criticism. Constructive criticism of the way any of us go about our business and constructive suggestions as to how to do things differently or better are always welcome. However, in the context of the myriad of changes which have been effected in the Garda force over the past 18 months, the force has been remarkably successful. I do not take any praise for that. It is for the Garda Commissioner who deals with operational matters and all those in the force for the focused and smart approach now taken to policing. This has resulted in crime figures being down in every category, except burglary and theft, which the force has been focusing on since last February. The outcomes of this will probably take another 12 months to work their way through the system. Over the past several days, 110 people were arrested in cannabis grow houses across the country with cannabis seized valued at approximately €3 million. The co-ordinated efforts the Garda has engaged in dealing with drugs and organised and subversive crime shows we have an outstanding force which deserves praise.

The Garda representative bodies are entitled to voice any concerns they have. I just wish that on occasion they would publicly acknowledge the excellence of their own members. I believe they have a role in doing that. Members of the general public often ask me why the Garda representative bodies do not publicly talk about the excellent achievements of the Garda Síochána while at the same time raising concerns they have for their membership. There is a need for a rebalancing of that. My experience is that the morale of the force is very high. Unfortunately, there is a tendency on the part of the Garda representative bodies to always allege Garda morale is low when that is not the case. It does deserve to be the case because of the enormous successes the force has achieved.

The Deputy had a question about consultancy services. I can provide a note to him detailing what consultancy services have been used and their cost.