Mr. Dónall Ó Cualáin:

That piece of work started in February and we picked one day where we looked at our databases to see where all personnel were assigned on that particular day on the system. That did not necessarily mean this was where they were. For some reason or another they may have been temporarily transferred to another duty or they may have been taken off the front line to perform some vital and critical administrative function in the absence of civilian staff to do that particular work. At this early stage the data are just coming in and are being cleaned in respect of going in to each of our divisions and districts, working with that original spreadsheet and then finding out exactly what everyone was doing on that day. We hope to be able to present, in the next week or so, a detailed breakdown of what we would call the low-hanging fruit. This would be the people who could immediately be transferred to the front line if we get civilian help in to replace them because they are doing vital work for us. That runs to at least 200 personnel at this juncture but there is still more work to be done on this.

There is another tranche of people who are doing administration work, but they may be on restricted duties because of sickness or health issues. It is important for the organisation to make sure those personnel are used and that we get best value for money out of those people, who want to come to work. We must put them in a position that will not put their health in danger.

There is another cohort of people who would traditionally have been assigned to offices. Consider, for example, a district superintendent's office in the country. Traditionally a Garda clerk would have been assigned to that superintendent. We have to ask if this is still the position and do we still need a garda doing that work. More in-depth work must be done on this issue because there are many views around it such as the view that a Garda perspective is needed in that role. If we have civilians coming in at the bottom rung, they can work their way through the organisation and there is no reason why, in time, those positions could not also be civilianised. It is not going to happen overnight, it will be a challenge but we can see that it can be done in phases.