Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join with others in welcoming all three witnesses and commend them on this excellent and really comprehensive report. It contains a great deal that members cannot hope to cover today but the joint committee will try to cover some parts of it.

I noted throughout the report a theme of good practices locally but inconsistency with regard to overall adherence to appropriate standards, whether in respect of crime prevention, recording, detection or dealing with different types of crime such as domestic violence. That struck me as a really strong overriding theme. I will focus again on the issue of domestic violence and sexual offences, about which the Inspectorate makes some really clear recommendations. In respect of rape in particular and serious sexual assault investigations, the inspectorate does not agree with the Garda policy that such investigations can be performed by all front-line gardaí and considers it to be wrong. Rather than that, the inspectorate recommends there should be dedicated rape investigation units. I note that while the domestic violence and sexual offences unit is in place, the inspectorate commented on that by stating it appears to focus on sexual offences against children. Is the inspectorate therefore suggesting this unit should be expanded in order that it has a remit to cover all sorts of serious sexual assault investigations? Does it propose that a similar model should be used for domestic violence in order to have specialist gardaí dealing with that or is it more that front-line gardaí should be trained because they will be the first responders, particularly in domestic violence cases? I am not quite clear as to precisely how the inspectorate proposes this should be changed.