Mr. Drew Harris:

As has already been said within the committee, in effect we are going back to a more locally-based and locally-responsive model. The divisional model formalises that within the organisation. The divisional officer will have responsibility for the local community and for the delivery of a local policing plan, working with the joint policing committees and the various communities. A considerable proportion of these officers' effort - and as I have said, between 50% and 60% of their resources are dedicated to community policing - will be expended on delivering our community policing function. More and more we can see that it is not only down to what we do as An Garda Síochána, but is about how we work with other agencies and the relationships we form and partnerships we have. These allow us to jointly identify and deal with some of the more persistent problems around anti-social behaviour through, for example, preventing street-level drug dealing and dealing with very serious crimes, such as domestic abuse, which have a devastating impact on families and relationships but can also have a devastating impact on an area or location.

Overall, by freeing up divisional officers and allowing them to be more operationally autonomous and by freeing up personnel in order that these officers will have the personnel to deliver this policing function, we believe that we will see an increase in the quality of policing and an improvement in the amount that we are able to provide through the development of a policing service for the future. As we get on to a more formalised footing in our relationships with other State agencies, we can start to have a real impact on quality-of-life issues that are impacting on critical neighbourhoods. As I have said, much of that relates to the abuse of alcohol and drugs. We are, perhaps, not best placed to deal with individuals who are addicted; it is more of a health issue. It is about how we work with the HSE in that respect.