Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

Absolutely. I have been very impressed by the very large number and depth of skills in the academic community in regard to our work areas. It is quite striking and it is not normal for all Departments to have that ability available to them. As I mentioned in my introductory remarks, we have commissioned a series of pieces of research. The first was on victims' experiences of the criminal justice system. We have also commissioned a piece on an evidence review of confidence in the criminal justice system from Maynooth, an evidence review on recidivism and policy response from UCD, a cyber crime review from a private consultancy and an understanding of the needs and experiences of sex trafficking victims in Ireland from Maynooth. We are also conducting another study on the scale of elicit markets in Ireland, but have not yet placed the contract for that. We are also developing internal pieces of legislation with our newly- recruited skills, including an evidence review of the effectiveness of hate crime legislation in other countries. We are developing our own internal skills and our engagement with the academic community, as Deputy O'Callaghan said.

My background and training in the Civil Service was as a policy analyst. It is an area in which I have a very strong personal engagement and commitment to the area of evidence-based policy development. It is an area to which we have often committed ourselves in the past, so this is not new. What is new is that two units in the Department have been established with that sole focus. This is the accountability element. If we do not fulfil this commitment, those two units will have failed their accountability test. I am very confident that the two units and our new data analysis unit, which are very well led and which we are now resourcing, will fulfil our commitment to evidence-based policy making. It is important to understand that the structure is designed to ensure accountability is in place.