Mr. Mark Toland:

I will take two parts and I am sure my colleagues will come in. I am very passionate about community policing and come from a police environment where they had dedicated resources. We were very lucky in London because there were additional resources provided on the understanding that, as a chief superintendent, I would not take them away to do other things. The Garda Síochána has not got that luxury. Some divisions have good numbers of full-time community officers. When I say a community officer I am talking about a dedicated officer whose main role it is. The Dublin divisions have certainly still got pretty good numbers. Some of the divisions have 20 or 30; in fact, there are 70 in one of the Dublin divisions, but the more rural areas are struggling to maintain the numbers of gardaí dedicated to community policing. It is a major challenge for them and we recognise that in the report.

We have been to community meetings to find out what the public want from their police, and they want accessibility, to know the individual garda, to have that relationship. There are some very difficult decisions to make. We are recommending trying to free up gardaí and sergeants in non-operational, administrative roles to get them back to front-line duties. Some should be redeployed into community engagement because it is very important to local people. We recognise that a model for Ireland has to be flexible enough to provide different types of policing for cities like Dublin, Cork or Limerick, but also for counties Donegal, Mayo or Kildare. There needs to be different approaches.

London set a target whereby community officers had to spend 80% of their time in their particular areas. I was not allowed to take them away to do other things. It was a fantastic commitment to the public, but once those officers are deployed the situation needs to be maintained. At public meetings, people have told us they are very happy with the service they get from community officers but when they dial 999 they are not getting a community officer, they are getting an officer who is coming to deal with that call and then wants to go off to deal with another one. There is a clear role for someone to deal with a 24/7 emergency call. There is also a need for commitment to having a full-time community officer who is there and available to attend community meetings and to support things like neighbourhood watch, text alert and community alert in rural areas. We need that visible presence of a known face, an individual who can be contacted.

Community policing is the heart of policing. The Garda Síochána wants to serve communities - that is its mission statement - and to work to protect communities. It is very important to have a physical presence and officers should not be taken away to do other things. At the moment, officers are being taken away to help with other duties, to do response-type policing, and they are being taken away from their community roles.