Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

I will explain the context of 2014. This issue was raised in April 2014. I want to preface this statement by saying that this is not an excuse, these are just facts. The facts were that the former Commissioner had retired. I was acting in an interim capacity only, performing the functions of the Commissioner, both deputy commissioners - Deputy Commissioner Operations and Deputy Commissioner Strategy and Change Management - so I was the single person in the executive. I had the most seriously reduced management team ever in the history of the Garda Síochána. The assistant commissioner who was given this responsibility to do was carrying portfolios, three very significant portfolios. These are not excuses but the facts were that the layers of management below that were depleted. To link in with Deputy Daly's question - the committee members will understand but I say this for the benefit of the public - the Garda Síochána has devolved functions. There is the Commissioner, there are deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, and they form the nucleus of the management team. At that stage, we were dealing with such a depleted management team that I was almost single-handed, with a team of five assistant commissioners, trying to run what was then a 14,500 person organisation. To be fair to the individual who was given this task, he had to do it with a myriad of other responsibilities. I do not have a logistical breakdown of the people who applied but I would be very happy to provide it to the committee.

The chief superintendent, who was in the traffic bureau at the time, was also carrying multiple portfolios, as was the superintendent. We had come through a very significant recession and the Garda were no different from anywhere else in the public or private sector but some of the legacy issues that we are dealing with now arise from the deficit and depletion of the supervisory and management capacity. It is worth remembering that I spent nine months in that position as interim Acting-Commissioner. I was appointed in November of that year. It took a further 11 months to have two deputy commissioners appointed and it is only in January of this year that we eventually got the appointment of a full executive, that is the people you see here. We very much welcome the transition of senior Garda appointments to the Policing Authority and thankfully, last week, along with the Policing Authority, we eventually got a panel of assistant commissioners -----