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

This was published in December. More than 269,000 overtime hours were allocated to Operation Thor in 2016. It might be of interest to the committee to note that overtime expenditure on Operation Thor for the first two months of this year is in the region of €1.115 million. Operation Thor has provided a swift return on the Government's investment in Garda resources. This is reflected in the official recorded crime statistics published by the CSO, which show a reduction. Operation Thor has been a success. There has been concentrated police activity throughout the country as a result, with 67,000 targeted checkpoints nationwide and 4,000 arrests connected to a range of offences linked to burglary, including handling stolen property, possession of firearms and drug offences.

This is an operational matter. The Commissioner is using the required overtime for Operation Thor. She will make her projections for the rest of this year shortly. I imagine that she is considering the range of priorities that she has to meet and deciding on those. Presumably, she will revert to us with her projections for Operation Thor for this year.