Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

To respond to the first question, we have appointed two ministerial liaison officers. One covers civil justice, immigration and equality and the other covers criminal justice. They now sit in a relationship with our transparency function. As that function develops its skills, it will command information flows throughout the Department. The ministerial liaison officers have the specific task of channelling relevant information to the Minister. I do not want to speak for the Minister but I think he is pleased with that arrangement.

The Senator asked about engagement with An Garda Síochána. As I mentioned earlier, we are setting up two governance functions, including one on criminal justice. There is detailed information on this in the slide pack. It explains that a major objective of setting up the governance functions is to ensure a consistent approach to governance across all agencies, including the Garda. That means setting up a relationship which is respectful and supportive but also demanding. That is quite a different kind of relationship to the one we had in the past. The Department was criticised in previous reviews, following the problems to which the Senator alluded, for being in the trenches with the Garda. We are trying to foster quite a different relationship between our governance function and the Garda. The transparency function will have to engage with matching resources in the Garda in order to provide a clear flow of relevant information into the Department. It will answer parliamentary questions and do all the normal things, but it will also ensure that the ministerial liaison officers and Ministers are fully informed. We have put specific new arrangements in place to deal with the issues the Senator identified in those areas.