Ms Lois West:

To be completely honest, it is only in the past number of weeks that it is receiving the attention that it should. We sent an email on 11 December seeking a meeting with senior Garda management because of our ongoing concerns about the lack of progress. We again saw a small flurry of activity afterwards and it was possibly on foot of this that another senior member of An Garda Síochána was appointed to lead a new working group. With Christmas and so on, it was 5 January before the group first met. We raised concerns after that meeting. We still felt that there was no clear direction. We always recognised how expansive an issue it was, that there were various elements to the work that needed to occur, and that it was important that the work was sequenced in such a fashion that certain parts did not cut across others.

We were aware that a multi-agency working group was to be set up, but it still has not been set up. My concern would be how the two groups would interrelate so that one would not overlap on the other and if there were to be any impacts from one to the other, we would need to have very clear terms of reference for both.

We met properly with the new review team on 19 February 2018. I feel much more reassured. I feel there is a genuine appetite to involve us at every stage and that matters will not be signed off on, unless we have said that we are happy also. Perhaps we are about to get what we have been asking for from day one, which was a full and independent review of death and homicide classifications.