Ms Anne Marie McMahon:

I will read the line Deputy, just to be helpful. The Walsh report recommended that a network of sporting, social, cultural, educational and recreational facilities be provided and actively encouraged in order to enable trainees to come together during off-duty hours, thereby developing them in the source of community spirit which would be helpful to them in the course of their duty. It was on the basis of this principle that the stipend was enabled, to the best of my understanding.

I would like to make two further points. The Garda college is not established by statute as other third level institutes are. There is no stream of funding other than the stipend for the students. The starting or stopping of the recruitment of students is a Government decision, usually coinciding with a downturn or an upturn in the economy. Neither Garda college nor the Garda organisation decide when that happens, or indeed what the numbers are. My understanding is that the stipend and the investments made the Department of Justice were to cater for peaks and valleys in the recruitment process and in the funding of the college.