Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

To refer back to 2014 once more, there had been a moratorium on recruitment and one of the key focuses of this management team is to ensure we have absolute integration. For the first time ever, we identified opportunities to increase the civilian representation on the senior management team. Mr. Barrett's appointment provides the first evidence of that. A decision was taken in 2007 that the HR position should be held by a civilian. That was never acted upon, but when I took up as Commissioner, I ensured that was done and that a civilian, Mr. Barrett, was appointed to the position, which had been held previously by an assistant commissioner. Since then, new civilian members have been appointed to the team. There has been a huge cultural shift in terms of speaking up and the integration of gardaí and civilian employees. What has manifested here at the committee, in the public domain and in commentary is not helpful and is not conducive to that because we are trying to develop a cohesive, effective team-----