Ms Josephine Feehily:

Certainly we have observed an absence of what I would call a structured management framework, with internal performance numbers, following through on who is doing what and so forth. When we were setting out our own work for the year, we indicated that we were going to look at elements of governance because we have a concern that is not unrelated to the point made by Deputy Brophy. That work will be beginning shortly. We are just going to be looking at the governance across the top of the organisation because it would be a magnum opusto do the whole governance piece. We are going to look at that in a fairly objective way. I am also struck by the echoes in Ms O'Toole's letter about management capacity. I do not think she is talking about the capacity of individuals, and neither am I. I am talking about the capacity of the management system. To that extent, I do not disagree with Deputy Brophy. The other issue that comes into play is culture.

About June of last year the authority called on the Garda to conduct a culture audit, which had been recommended sometime previously by an inspectorate report. That is finally now under way. If one does not get an independent benchmark of culture then one cannot measure progress. Culture is enormously powerful in all organisations. In a disciplined force with a long tradition and its own ways of working the culture, as management books say, can eat strategy and everything else very easily. We are putting a lot of emphasis on making sure that the culture audit is not delayed. Comments about Garda culture have been made in the past by a number of Commissions of Investigation, a number of commentators and, indeed, the inspectorate. The Garda has been inclined to disown them. Therefore, it is very important an objective piece of work is done that involves focus groups, and input by individual members, so that we can say, "This is what you said about your culture" and then see where that takes us.