Mr. Ian Drennan:

I thank Deputy Kelleher for his opening sentiments which are appreciated. Initially, he used the word "unkind" and then subsequently used the word "scathing". I agree scathing is the more accurate adjective. The trial judge was scathing. We are on record as saying rightly so in respect of many of the issues which arose.

On the resources that the Deputy referenced, there are a couple of issue within that such as expertise. When I took up the position, I went on record soon after being appointed that I was of the view that the office would require further professionalisation. That resulted, with the support of various Ministers and Governments. A fairly significant recruitment programme has taken place thereafter and many of the people sitting before the committee are people who are a product of that. Both of the enforcement managers sitting beside me are relatively new, one of whom is a barrister while the other is a forensic accountant. We also have a digital forensic specialist and a whole range of new skills have been brought to the organisation and have fairly substantially enhanced our capability across a range of activities.

The Deputy referenced independence. On statutory independence and decision-making, in my tenure there has never been an issue and I have never experienced any degree of interference or anything such as that. Independence is about being able to do one's job on a day-to-day basis, which is tied in with resources and the Deputy raised an important point, namely that one of the key measures within this Bill is the proposal to transition the ODCE from being an office of the Department to being an agency. I know the Deputy is fully conversant with that, having been there. I should preface my remarks by saying that I was formerly a chief executive officer, CEO, of an agency, the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority, IAASA, which also comes within the committee's remit. As I did that for eight years, I have a pretty significant level of understanding as to how an agency operates, how an office operates and the differences between them. The reality is that one's ability to manage one's own resources, to fill vacancies when they arise and to do important things such as a succession plan is considerably enhanced in an agency environment vis-à-visan office because the reality is that whereas we have a number of individuals who are hired directly through open competition in the newspapers, another cohort of staff are officers of the Department, who are effectively assigned to the ODCE and that area is more problematic. The Deputy will know that himself from the internal workings of Departments. When a vacancy within that cohort arises, one really just joins the queue and the officials from the Department effectively touched on that last week. Then one becomes part of the broader staffing priorities of a Department, which are entirely legitimate from a Department's perspective but do not necessarily align with our interests, whereas if one is in an agency and a vacancy is coming up, one can just get on with filling the vacancy through open competition to ensure that people with the requisite skill sets are being hired.

An Garda Síochána was the next issue. The first thing I should say is that in my experience, during the six years I have been in the organisation, we have had an excellent working relationship with An Garda Síochána. As the Deputy is aware, we have a cohort of members of An Garda Síochána seconded to the office. Traditionally they are seconded from what used to be the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and is now the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, GNECB. Detective Inspector O'Keeffe is here with us and he heads up our Garda unit. In addition to having those individuals in house, we also have an excellent working relationship with the fraud bureau and more broadly with Garda management. We participate on an ongoing basis in the training which I referenced in some of the documents, such as interview training and search training and we have only done some of that relatively recently. We have participated in education programmes that it has run and so on. Detective Inspector O'Keeffe may or may not wish to add to this but if, for example, we were engaging in a search operation or in arrests and detentions, he is in a position to call in a dedicated search team from An Garda Síochána to assist. Does he wish to elaborate on that?