Ms Lois West:

I do not believe so. We will certainly endeavour to do the best we can. The difficulty we have is we are starting with a domestic homicide and working back to look at the history. I would not like to sit here and give any guarantees we will be able to pick up on every attention and complaint incident that was potentially a domestic incident. The system is vast and there are a huge number of records in it.

The point of beginning with a victim and working back is to be able to make certain recommendations and inform intervention strategies. It will take time to do it. Part of the reason it has been disappointing that we did not have the traction we wanted sooner is because we have lost time. Our aim is to try to professionalise and standardise everything and to try to ensure there is consistency. I will hark back to what I said earlier. I have concerns about the structure of posts; the education of members and their understanding of the various crime and non-crime classifications; and the ability of the data quality unit within the Garda information services centre, GISC, to be able to identify where something has been misclassified. In the course of this year it is intended that the Garda information services centre will be responsible for determining the classification of incidents. We should get away from the issue we have had where there is a debate about what the incident is between the member and the person in the information services centre inputting the incident. I hope that if a member makes contact with GISC and says he or she wants to record an incident as "attention and complaint" but it is clear to the person taking the call that it is actually a domestic assault, it will go in as a domestic assault.