Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. May I say at the outset that it is wonderful at the end of Mr. Harris's first year as Commissioner to be meeting him and having such a positive engagement with An Garda Síochána? I acknowledge as the Chairman did at the start of the meeting today, that since I became a member of the Oireachtas committee on Justice and Equality, we have had so many engagements with Mr. Harris's predecessors and with An Garda Síochána that were caught up in the controversies of the day. To be attending a meeting that is discussing positive things such as redeployment of Garda, structural change, looking at the future and also to do that against the backdrop of a policing authority report coming out, acknowledging not just the success rate of the implementation of that change and the hitting of targets but also recognising that there is through the current leadership team a dynamic element to that change and I want to see that. It is incredibly positive.

I wish to drill down on a number of issues. There are pilot schemes and they have been obviously successful. Can Mr. Harris give us a brief outline of how the public would see the difference between the service that was being delivered in the past and the service that is now being delivered? Obviously that gives us the best feel of what the public will eventually hopefully see on a national basis?

May I clarify something on the divisional regional structural change and the worry that might exist around divisional command stations. My understanding of what the Commissioner is trying to do is to effectively enhance the delivery and the quality of all stations throughout the new divisional regional structure so that there is a much more equal spread of ability to deliver both localised policing and directly implement those decisions so that it is not really a loss but an enhancement across an entire area. I am interested in an update on ICT and where we are on that. It has been a bugbear for quite a while and I would be very interested to hear about the funding that the Government has provided.

I know that when there is structural change there always are reservations and it is vitally important not only to bring the people to whom you provide the service, which is the public but also the members and staff of the Garda Síochána with you. I would be interested to learn about the experience of the officers in those pilot programmes, and whether the officers think it is a better structure to work within. One of the things in terms of the consultation process that I know was shown up very clearly was the level of dissatisfaction within the membership of An Garda Síochána in the very top down non-consultative, non involvement way in which the previous structure worked. I would be interested to see how that has played out.

Again in the context of this terrific redeployment to the front line, Mr. Harris answered one of my colleagues by saying that it was obviously to deliver better services.

Are the witnesses talking about community policing still being at the heart of the process? That is really part of what the reform programme is about, and it should be the end goal of every structural change and every method that has been introduced to make change. In that context, perhaps the witnesses will talk about the fact that An Garda Síochána has met its targets for quarter 1 and quarter 2 for the 500 plus redeployment of gardaí. Where have they gone, primarily? What types of roles are those gardaí filling and are they touching directly in the area of community policing? In general, I believe that what has happened so far within a 12 month period has been a terrific success story.