Mr. Pat Leahy:

I absolutely agree that is a factor of policing now. We are all dealing with that at the moment. The level of mental health issues and trauma we are dealing with in the people with whom we engage is becoming really topical. It was not part of discourse in policing five or ten years ago but it is very much part of it now.

The Minister of State, Deputy Stanton, appeared before the committee earlier. Members will be aware that he launched the evaluation of the joint agency response to crime, JARC, in recent weeks. That has been very successful. It brings An Garda Síochána, the Probation Service, the Prison service and other agencies together focusing on a certain cohort of criminal activity and the people who are involved in it. That is all about trying to engineer them out of the criminal justice system and bringing about interventions that would not normally have been available to the police.

The central protective services bureau has been operational for quite a while and the divisional model is bringing on the other ones. They will be in all divisions before too long. All of that acknowledges that we are not just dealing with criminals; people have a background. The majority of people who end up in prisons have suffered trauma in childhood and we have never been part of a discourse on that. However, that is changing substantially now.

I will give an example of one of those outreach programmes in Dublin city at the moment between An Garda Síochána, the Ana Liffey Drug Project, Dublin City Council and others, where they are going out and looking for these hard to reach people who are not being provided with the full intervention spectrum to address their issues because drugs, homelessness and trauma are all wrapped up in the same individual.

They are going out and finding people in laneways and doorways. They are trying to create a relationship with them to find out what interventions are being made for them. Where gaps are found, they try to fast-track them into treatment and through the housing system which, as members are aware, is very difficult. That has been ongoing for quite a while. I believe there are 50 people in the city who are part of the programme. Yes, it is becoming very much part of the lexicon in policing.

I shall give the committee a flavour of the training provided or acquired for community police officers which based on the model that is in place. Every garda who is encountered on the street, certainly those in uniform, should have received this training as we move into the future. It starts with ethos, ethics and human rights, decision-making, problem identification, problem solving and vulnerable and trauma impact identification. This is a new discourse and dialogue in policing. The training also includes harm prevention, intervention strategies, multi-ethnicity collaboration, victim support, stakeholder analysis and engagement, data management, diversity and integration, hate crime and community roles and responsibilities. There is also community interaction with minorities and migrants, age positive actions and mental and physical health. There is a list of aspects that need to be engineered into the police training programme. This is included in the framework we are presenting to the Garda Commissioner. It has been acknowledged that it is part and parcel of policing. The discourse on it has really only come to the fore in the last couple of years. It is also absolutely reflective of what Mr. Todd is describing.