Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

The Walsh report on training, which led to the development of the college into the training and education facility described by Deputy Murphy, goes back to the 1980s. Deputy Murphy has rightly identified something that we have identified for a long time: it is not appropriate for Garda members who are trained police officers to be carrying out these types of functions or for them to be put into these functions without the appropriate training. That is why we have moved on to working with the Policing Authority and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to get properly skilled and suitably qualified civilian members into those roles. That is why we have gone on to address it in the interim by putting in a principal officer with the appropriate level of skill to implement the revised recommendations. It is quite inappropriate otherwise.

I do not think any other organisation of the size and scale of An Garda Síochána that provides such a vital function and that requires such training would be expected to put members in place who are not qualified. However, that was the reality at the time because there was a moratorium on recruiting properly and suitably skilled professional civilians. Now that the moratorium has been lifted, we are moving to address it.