Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

The Garda Síochána Inspectorate report is a very helpful report. It is extensive and elaborate and it contains over 211 recommendations. A significant number of those relate to ICT issues and some of them are specifically in relation to PULSE. I will ask Mr. Dunne to speak about our ICT strategy. We have used the report and previous reports that were carried out and some work that we had carried out ourselves on an ICT strategy to identify what are our ICT requirements. We very much welcome the commitment to modernise the ICT infrastructure and it will require significant investment. To ensure that we are doing that in the right way and in the right sequence, we have set up an ICT steering group which has identified the sequence of initiatives that we need to take.

The PULSE system contains an enormous amount of information. It is very useful information but in terms of providing figures, PULSE was not really designed to do that. Many other police forces are experiencing similar challenges. What is really interesting is that many of those police forces, such as Police Scotland, for example, are using a similar architecture to PULSE but are looking at integrating different applications into it. That is very much where our focus is at the moment, on establishing how we can build on the platform that we have and modernise it and make it much more effective in terms of being able to provide the type of data that is required. Mr. Dunne may be in a position to update the committee on where we are with it.