Mr. Dónall Ó Cualáin:

It is broadly acknowledged that changing culture is a difficult task. However, we will not be discouraged by that. At a high level, strong leadership is needed at the start. Leaders who are convinced of the path they must take are needed and then every member of staff in the organisation, including every garda, civilian and Garda reservist, needs to be on board with the support of their management to achieve what we all know is achievable but which will take some time. It is not as if we have not started that work. We have an ambitious programme of reform and renewal, which kicked off last year, because we got a commitment to investment and, as one of the Senator's colleagues said, external support is important for this. We will not do this on our own. We have a big part to play in it but we will need the continued support of all our oversight bodies to ensure we leverage and get the best bounce out of every penny invested in the organisation over the coming years with this ambitious programme of reform.

Some of the issues we have had to answer the committee on during our past few visits go back to bad systems and processes, which need to be updated. I have been all over the country and visited staff at all ranks. There is a huge level of goodwill among the public because of gardaí going above and beyond the call of duty but we need to ensure the values they bring to the front line and the new code of ethics - it was one of the first jobs of the Policing Authority - are embedded in the coming months and are to the forefront of all our people's minds as they go about their duty. That applies to everyone in the organisation. There is a multiplicity of factors and it will not be easy but we have made some gains in that space. There is a challenge for me, and for my management. We have to ensure we get out to the people on the front line and ensure they are being supported but we need all of them to make sure we make progress in this area. It is one of our top priorities that after all the small pieces of the mosaic are fitted together, our overall culture will be the overall winner from that in the context of doing our job in a much more transparent and better way where our ethics and values are easily seen by all concerned to be the backbone of what we do.