Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the witnesses for their attendance. I have read the opening statements and I know that the committee will them very helpful in producing our final report.

I will share some of my own experiences with everyone. In my role as justice spokesperson for the Fianna Fáil Party, many of my colleagues ask me to attend meetings in their constituencies. I have found these meetings a very insightful experience and a couple of issues have stood out at them. First, there is still huge confidence in An Garda Síochána. People want to see An Garda Síochána succeed notwithstanding the problems in the force in recent years. Second, a large number of people attend meetings when they are about community policing or rural crime, much more so than any other political issue. That reflects a genuine concern and interest among the public. The Garda has a good base upon which to build.

People say the same thing at every meeting I attend. They want to see more gardaí on the beat and they want more community policing, which is what we are discussing here. The committee's objective is to see what we can do to give effect to that, how can we make the force more efficient and, primarily, how can we get more gardaí out into the community doing work that is valued by the community. Every politician in this room goes knocking on doors and meets people. Most people are not particularly interested in a politician calling to their door but there is a much greater level of appreciation and trust in gardaí. I would like to see circumstances in which communities would know who their local community gardaí are, in the same way as they know Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin or whoever else is their Deputy in the constituency of Cavan-Monaghan. Are there ways whereby that can be done? Maybe there is too much staff turnover in An Garda Síochána and people move on too quickly. I do not know whether the issue has been covered but what are the witnesses' views on having a separate grade of community garda and a separate line of progression for community gardaí?

Criminality has been greatly enhanced by technology. Criminals use the Internet to defraud people and to identify whether people are at home. Similarly, peace minded people and those who want to obey the law can also use technology to fight criminality. I have seen the Garda work with people on community watch schemes to try to get a whole area covered by a Garda division. People in these areas may form a WhatsApp group or community alert scheme. The witnesses may have covered this matter before and I apologise if they have. Could the committee make any recommendation in our report to improve the situation in this regard?