Mr. Michael Finn:

The superintendents are already seeing the benefits of not having to be tied up on daily administration, not having to go to court and not having to investigate complaints, which was probably a big bugbear for them as it was taking a lot of their time away. They can go back to community engagement. The feedback we have had from superintendents so far has been very positive. Are they achieving the full benefit of it yet? Not exactly; not until the investigations they currently have in their in-trays are washed out. Then they will see even more benefits from the reform. As they go along they will see the richness of it, plus the fact that we have taken a lot of simple administrative tasks away from them. As that begins to progress and we expand it across the country then all boats will be lifted by reducing that administrative burden and the amount of time that is tied up in that work. This is really where one can see the benefit. Our own Garda staff who do the back-office support can see that they are building their teams and their teams are becoming more experienced and more efficient as this gets rolled out. There is also the learning we acquired from having piloted the model in four areas, which can be taken to the other divisions so they will not have to go through the same pain of trying to implement new processes and new procedures. We will be able to ramp up the speed at which we can deliver the model across the State, using the learning from the first pilot areas moves on. The feedback so far has been positive internally and from the community.