Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To confirm, this does not involve an extra spend; it is about a reallocation but all within the justice group of Votes. There is no extra money involved. It is about reallocating money from areas in which there has been an underspend and moving it to areas that we have prioritised, for example, ICT and the purchase of Garda vehicles. There was an underspend in the areas I outlined.

As to SIS II, there is no connection with the fact that Ireland is outside the Schengen agreement. It is called the Schengen information system. The second generation of the SIS is a state-of-the-art EU-wide IT system that allows for an easy and automated exchange of information between national border control authorities, customs and police authorities in different jurisdictions. It is one of the important tools member states are using to exchange information, particularly on terrorist threats. We use other methods also, but there is a move at EU level - I have attended many meetings and chaired a number of others in the Department of Justice and Equality - to try to ensure we will have the best possible interoperability, while respecting the need for data protection and other issues that arise.

As the investment in information technology had been stopped for a number of years, we are behind, but I am keen to accelerate investment. It is a complex matter from an IT point of view, but we are working on it with a number of groups from within the Garda and specialist agencies, including at European level, to ensure we can reach the point of proper interoperability between the systems in order to deal with criminal activity and irregular border movements. The current concern is that we exchange information in a timely way to tackle terrorism. There needs to be greater interoperability between systems and member states in real time. It has been a complicated discussion and it is expensive, with the total amount being very substantial. The timeframe for implementing the necessary systems and structures to support the integration of the SIS II has been provisionally estimated at between 18 and 24 months at a cost of between €18 and €22 million, but this substantial investment in information technology is necessary.