Ms Josephine Feehily:

It is in respect of the behaviour of gardaí, their disposition and the way they approach their responsibilities under section 12. I thought that was to their credit.

The themes in the report were themes the authority was already engaged with. We did not sit down and say "today we are doing Dr. Shannon's report". For example, as long ago as probably last November in public session we were asking the gardaí about their application of children first guidelines and we commented negatively on the incomplete training of Garda members for interviewing children. We had been coming at themes that are echoed in Dr. Shannon's report starting at the end of last year.

The question about PULSE sits in our work on data quality. He is absolutely correct that there are deficiencies in the data on PULSE. We have been dealing with that as a data theme for over a year. PULSE is an acronym but it is a piece of technology. The data deficiencies are to do with what is put on PULSE. Sometimes PULSE is used as a catchall term but most of the data quality issues that we have noticed, and which it seems to me Dr. Shannon is outing, have to do with the quality of the information that is put into the system. If I gave the impression that we are not exercised about those issues it is simply that in our work they have been under way for some time under the headings of engagement with children and data quality. In respect of the specific set of recommendations, we have placed Dr. Shannon's report on the agenda for our public meeting tomorrow to get a progress report from the gardaí on each of those. We are very mindful of the content and I am sorry if I gave a different impression but we did not do it through the lens of the report but through the themes of children and data quality. In that regard we very much share his concerns. We also did it through the lens of training.

In respect of the alcohol tests, as I indicated earlier, the work is well advanced and the sense we are getting from the company doing the work for us is that it is likely to report that there was an implicit expectation in connection with breath tests rather than an explicit direction. It is difficult to imagine an organisation having such a discrepancy in numbers without knowledge existing throughout the organisation. It is difficult to conceive that there would not have been knowledge at various levels throughout the organisation. To return to the point I made when I was discussing managerial capacity with Deputy Brophy, and whether this data mattered that I discussed with Deputy O'Callaghan, I have a sense that it is not an organisation that looks at numbers and says if we do this many breath tests, and we have this many gardaí and there are only this many people with licences and that is the managerial capacity point. I suspect we will get indications from Crowe Horwath of a belief throughout the organisation that certain performance was expected but it is unlikely to find a directive or a direction. I still think the contribution from the Garda Representative Association, GRA, if it can produce evidence of it, will help us to close that circle. I have a thing in my head that someday somebody put 2 million breath tests on a website without saying hold on, there are not that many driving licences. There is not that way of thinking.