Mr. Pat Leahy:

That is the framework on which we are working. It will represent a complete restructuring of what we have in place. The idea is that we will have a national structure and that we will be able to know from a national position down who owns every area in the country in terms of community policing. The idea is that, as the national lead in this area, I know who the community garda is in west Kerry or Cahersiveen and that we can communicate directly. The idea is that the people in these locations know who their community garda is as well. We are aiming to achieve a situation whereby everyone will know who their community garda is. Although everyone on the commission says that all of those at district level will be community gardaí, there has to be a graduated level of community orientation. This is because detectives are detectives and while they need a community policing ethos, they have to be skilled in other areas too.

We maintain that the entire front line will be geared towards community policing. Training, recruitment, promotion and so on – these are all instruments - need to be aligned to show that is the case. This is a real orientation towards community. We have to take a complete outside-in perspective. We will have to put in place the technology and some sort of customer relationship management system to connect us completely with the community. The idea is that we are in constant communication with them and that we are logging and tracking all the issues that arise. These are non-emergency issues but we need a full problem-solving approach to policing. The idea is that someone owns it and is responsible and accountable for it at street level, team level and as part of a national structure. That is what we are being asked to do and that is what we are working on.

We had a draft ready for some time and we were moving in this direction but, in light of the commission report, there was no point in moving on it. Using the census data and a satellite mapping tool we mapped out the entire country. Every division in the county has been mapped out down to a Central Statistics Office level. We have all the data captured. Many areas have been mapped out to what we term community policing area level. Really, we were waiting for the commission and the new Commissioner to come in and send us on our way.