Mr. Michael Finn:

In the context of the structure of the joint policing committee, JPC, versus the local community fora, what Mr. Todd has said echoes my experience on the ground. The joint policing committee was a very formal structure and it played its role, but real service was delivered down in the local fora, because the local sergeant and the local superintendent met the local community and that is where the real local needs came out. There was accountability in that system because the gardaí had to come back the following week and were asked about the particular problem which the community had put on the table that needed to be resolved. The local fora gave a much better service to the community at local level in terms of solving the problems. I would certainly love to have more agencies involved. It was great to have the local authority as well as the gardaí but as Mr. Todd stated there are lots of agencies which are involved in providing services in the community and their representatives need to be sitting around the table, asking how all the agencies can come together to resolve those issues.

They are not just policing issues, invariably they are issues that deal with education, housing etc. and it is only by all those around the table taking that holistic approach to solving problems, that things happen.

We are putting a new structure into An Garda Síochána and we want to give our local superintendents' communications hubs the time and capacity to sit down and work and do that type of engagement. The Garda were not always able to do that type of engagement in the past because they were too distracted doing court work, investigations and discipline work that was taking us away from the core function of what superintendents want to be doing at ground level. I think we will see changes when we get our new model up and running.