Ms Josephine Feehily:

We found that the process the Policing Authority has put in place for the appointment of assistant Garda commissioners to be quite agile, flexible and productive. We are not convinced that it needs three layers - the Government, the Policing Authority and the Public Appointments Service - in such a rigid hierarchy, for want of a better word, to give us the best outcome. The Policing Authority would have been quite capable of running a process for the selection of a person to serve as Garda Commissioner. This might have given us the kind of outcome described by the Deputy whereby we might have had a slate of candidates. Who knows? When we use words like "flexible", it is more that the Policing Authority could itself run the process. That would be consistent with other comparable bodies on these islands. This is not in any way to say that the process will not be run properly and in accordance with the law; it is simply to do with the future, being more agile and more like other authorities.