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

I thank Mr. Nugent. I appreciate that. I want to address a matter in the opening presentation. My colleague raised matters relating to the IT situation. The document referenced, which was reported by RTÉ recently, on Sunday, 22 April, came from the office of the acting Garda Commissioner, Mr. Dónall Ó Cualáin, and it was to the finance and resources section of the Department of Justice and Equality. The witnesses were not aware of the particular document, as they indicated to Deputy Ó Laoghaire. That is the specific document referenced. It talks about 37% of the in-house IT specialists having been lost over recent years, making a case for a serious situation that continues.

In their remarks to us, in their opening statement, the witnesses referenced the same issue but stated that in the last 12 months, the number of in-house skilled resources in ICT - I presume resources means personnel - has increased and will increase, as we would all hope, over the coming years, and that consequently there will be less dependency on Accenture and other outside IT agencies. The case put by the acting Garda Commissioner's office to the Department of Justice and Equality, with no disrespect to what the witnesses have said to us, reflects more accurately a very difficult situation within An Garda Síochána. The point I am making is that we will be addressing a whole compendium of issues directly to the Minister over the next short period which we have requested. Rather than seeing this as them and us, we want to be in complement to each other for the key issues where there is a need. We can reflect on this with the Minister and the Department, who will be coming before us, with a supportive position for the case that has been made. It is important that we are seen in that light. Would the witnesses like to comment any further on that matter, given the mild, tempered reflection that they had in their opening statement, as against what I see in the report from RTÉ to be a much stronger and more robust case, which we would like to support?