Mr. Drew Harris:

The commission has identified a series of areas in which our involvement was regarded as unnecessary and in respect of which agencies should be taking on the tasks. The Deputy is correct in identifying that. We are working through these areas with the Department of Justice and Equality. Some of this obviously requires a resource uplift because we spend a lot of time on court security, for instance, but also in other areas. We have talked about immigration, in which we had significant involvement. We have now moved from that. Beyond that, we just need to take it in stages. For us to say we are finishing in a certain area in three months is undoable. We cannot say to the Courts Service that we are out of there on 1 January. The service itself needs to think about the roles we take on. The same applies to the Prison Service. It must be asked what roles we take on, how we currently work together and how to move forward. Can technology provide some answers concerning individuals on remand going backwards and forwards to court? Can it be done by video link to remove the reason for prisoner transfers, completely in some cases? Can other technological solutions be applied?

There is a lot of thought being devoted to this. It was the subject of work over a couple of years and this has revitalised that. We hope to see, in the next two years, some of the responsibilities migrating across. It will probably be for the Department. A lot of this is within the family of the Department of Justice and Equality. It will decide on how the resource cake is divided up. That will follow undoubtedly. I will make my case but I am sure my peer group will also make its case. It will be a case of saying, "If you are not doing this, then we need the money to buy in the service in whatever shape or form is necessary." It is not straightforward. With regard to some of the things we are doing, we probably represent the most expensive way of doing them to the Exchequer. There are probably more cost-effective ways of proceeding, particularly regarding court security.