Mr. Niall Garvey:

The Chairman did not notice my grimace. Muintir na Tíre fully agrees with the recommendation that all gardaí should be community focused. It is important that the community has a face, or two or three, to cover a roster and that they have a contact point with which, as Foróige has said, they can build up trust. They attend community alert meetings and youth club meetings and so on, and that is important.

The crime prevention officer is becoming the de facto contact point for the Garda in many areas because he or she is going out to meetings and giving crime prevention advice. In many cases there is one crime prevention officer for a division which can cover two counties. Such officers are not contactable. It is not feasible. There needs to be a contact point.

An Garda Síochána is woefully behind in technology and that is something everyone accepts. Muintir na Tíre operates a text alert scheme and it sends out texts on behalf of the Garda. In many cases, Muintir takes a phone call from a garda on a mobile phone asking it to send out a text because gardaí do not have smartphones or even Internet access in many stations. Where are we going if we do not even have that as a starting point?