Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I came here to listen rather than to ask questions because we have much to learn. There are often knee-jerk reactions without enough thought. The PSNI assistant chief constable, Alan Todd, was before the committee some weeks ago and he was very interesting. We spoke about the challenges of mental health, the role played by the PSNI, and the amount of the service's time that is taken up with it. When I asked if he thought the service had sufficient training to prepare PSNI members to engage in such a complex area, he replied that the PSNI was probably doing more than it should be in the area and that others need to engage more. He said that one could not set out to train people for all the areas in which they now engage. Is there a problem in this when dealing with sex offenders? It must feel as though so much falls on the police service. Down here, the gardaí are often called to incidents where there is a mental health challenge dimension, often when other services are failing to do what we would wish of them or what they should. Do the witnesses think that there is too much on their plates to deal with this or do other organisations provide enough support for them to perform effectively?