Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring:

Regarding interactions, in fairness, day in and day out, gardaí interact with the public. Day in and day out, people have no complaint and we should not lose sight of that. We have to remind ourselves in our organisation that because we deal with complaints not every experience is a bad experience; we are just seeing the people who are complaining about their experience.

I know the training has improved. I have been in Templemore and seen what has been done in recent years. I see great people down there with great intentions. The downside of increasing numbers puts pressure on training. There is a temptation to speed up the training. There is a thought out practice for training new members and I would hate for the increased numbers to reduce that training period because it is thought out. There are some very good people and they are looking at all aspects.

I heard the then Chief Superintendent McMahon talking about how someone failed an exercise because they showed no empathy. They got the right answer, but it was a training exercise and they had no empathy in dealing with the member of the public who was part of the exercise. The training has improved tremendously. Good practices are being taught. There are now mentors in stations. In the past, someone might have arrived at a station and been told "Forget what you learned in Templemore. This is where you'll really learn how to be a guard." It has brought in mentors into the station to counter that attitude. I would hope that in that regard the training is embedded.

In fairness to the Garda, the reduction in resources including numbers has brought greater pressures. On a human level, we all perform better when we have resources and time and when there are fewer demands on us. For a garda alone behind the counter in a station with the phone ringing and people outside, and where somebody who has been arrested is brought in, it can take a lot to say, as should be expected, "How may I help you?" because so many people are looking for attention.

Resourcing should allow for that relaxation, so to speak, and should allow for the proper responses. That again goes back to discipline. It is not a formal discipline, but a sergeant should pick up on a rude response or a lack of response and say "Look, I noted how you dealt with that member of the public. You'll have to do better." It should not be made a formal discipline issue; it is just good practice. In the wider context of the Garda and GSOC, I would like to see a reduction in their work.

I would like to see that people do not come to us because they do not have cause, and that means more effort on the part of the Garda.

That would give us more time to deal with the serious matters. The less time spent dealing with the service level the more time we have to deal with serious matters. Whether it is the whistleblowers, incidents that happen out of road traffic incidents or whatever, we could deal with those more effectively and more efficiently. It would also mean that because we are under less pressure we could engage more appropriately with the public and, hopefully, the members of the public would have greater trust in us to deal with its complaints because in the first instance the public would find its complaints were being dealt with by the appropriate personnel within An Garda Síochána. It is a connected process. Culture within police forces is difficult to change. Whether it is North-South or across both bodies of water, it is a challenge. It will not happen either with legislative change or overnight.