Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

I want to be very clear. As I said at the outset, we identified the need for cultural reform of An Garda Síochána as a key tenet of our modernisation programme. It is much more than just a modernisation programme. One does not change culture overnight. It takes a very long time. I can tell the Deputy and the committee that we have undertaken a programme of work to change the culture. Our aim is to empower people to raise the issues we are talking about here, to identify what the issues are, to have the courage and the confidence to speak up about them - to shine a light on them, to use the Deputy's phrase - and then to be able to do something about it and work with other stakeholders-----