John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Commissioner and his colleagues. I wish to start with the penalty points issue which has been raised recently. I am sure other members will also wish to make reference to it. As of now, I understand three gardaí face disciplinary proceedings over the quashing of penalty points, that is, three out of the 113 officers involved. The assistant commissioner has found no evidence of criminality, corruption, deception or falsification and that an average of 10,702 notices were terminated every year by gardaí employing discretionary power. He has found that notices were terminated for a good reason in many cases but for no good reasons in others. When people look at this issue, they will come to the conclusion that there is less to this issue than meets the eye. It has probably been overblown in some ways. However, we must ask questions about basic administration and administrative procedures in the context of completing files and the audit procedures involved when a quashing of a notice occurs. Is the Commissioner concerned that basic procedures have not been followed in some districts and divisions?