Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Brophy. There is no response to that. I have a couple of final points myself. In his opening address, the acting Commissioner stated:

All of us in An Garda Síochána must now take responsibility to change our systems, practices, behaviours and culture so these issues cannot happen again and confidence is rebuilt. It is a collective issue and can only be fixed from the top down and the bottom up.

That is very important. I agree with colleagues that this is not a situation in which any of us wanted to be. These are issues which have presented themselves, whatever their genesis, particularly the breath-testing debacle. As someone who respects An Garda Síochána and has an excellent working relationship with the acting Commissioner's colleagues within my constituency and the divisional areas attaching thereto, it is very important to recognise that some of the points made here today will not wash. They will not run. I wish no personal disrespect to Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan, but the point he made about estimation rather than inflation is not one anyone on the committee can buy. I cannot speak for the members but I listened to them all very carefully. We cannot buy the notion that this was all just about estimation, which is how such incredibly inflated figures arose. "Falsification" is the word we have used. I do not think we are going to fulfil the goal of restoring confidence, to which the acting Commissioner, quite rightly, referred in his opening remarks, in any exercise that is intended to or appears to pull the engine of it all out. I cannot buy estimation in this instance and inflation. At the end of the day, the public belief is that there was falsification and we need to get to the kernel of that and discover what caused it.

Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan's report is not the final word on this. The Policing Authority's report is yet to come. Are there any other exercises in train or working on this? Are there other internal reports or examinations following on from Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan's report or is it the case that we are just waiting on the report commissioned by the Policing Authority? It is the universality of this. If it was specific to a particular division, people might think that it could be explained in some other way. However, this was universal. Serving members of An Garda Síochána all over the country did not just wake up and decide to report inaccurate figures on breath tests. We need to know the facts as that is hugely important to the restoration of public confidence. That confidence is, in turn, hugely important to the relationship between An Garda Síochána and the people it is entrusted to serve, namely the Irish people and Irish society generally. Can the witnesses clarify the position having regard to other reports?

The acting Commissioner referred to 3,800 cases scheduled to be heard in the Circuit Court in 2017. Assistant Commissioner Finn also made reference to that. In terms of the practicalities, are they special sittings? What does that do and how does it impact on the already scheduled series of sittings which normally take place?

I refer also to PULSE and the report of Dr. Geoffrey Shannon on the exercise of functions under section 12 of the Child Care Act. While he paid tribute to all of those gardaí with whom he had worked and recognised that the highest standards were applied by individual members in the exercise of that power and authority, he was very critical of the systems in operation within An Garda Síochána. We must look at that. While we acknowledge the excellent disposition of individual gardaí, there has been a failure to address what is wrong with the system. The circumstances and whereabouts of 31 recorded children are completely unknown according to the particular focus Dr. Shannon took.

Has any exercise been carried out over the period since Dr. Shannon's report was presented to the Office of the Garda Commissioner? Has any exercise been undertaken to establish the current whereabouts of those 31 missing children? Has an updating exercise been undertaken on the PULSE system? Can the acting Commissioner add any additional information that might give us a sense that the importance of this report is fully appreciated and that the necessary attention is being devoted to implementing, in a speedy manner, the recommendations Dr. Shannon made? The acting Commissioner might respond.