Mr. John Twomey:

Deputy Jack Chambers makes an important point about acknowledging the good work that people do on a daily basis. One of the key changes that is coming in is that members of An Garda Síochána will do what members of An Garda Síochána are recruited to do, which is police the streets, work with the communities and provide that quality of life that people need, and that there will be support staff then to gather the data. The data are important. If we want to make decisions based on data, the data that go in must be important. Otherwise, we have the garbage in, garbage out type scenario and that is not what we want.

On the Deputy's key point as to whether we are focusing on acknowledging our Garda personnel and the work they do on the streets with the communities, the simple answer to that question is "Yes". That is the direction in which we want to go, putting members of An Garda Síochána in uniform back out on the streets doing the simple basic functions of a member of An Garda Síochána, which is providing a quality of life with the local communities. That is one key shift that we have acknowledged. The point the Deputy makes on the policing plans is certainly something we would acknowledge.