Mr. Deaglán Ó Briain:

There is in no getting away from the fact that we have accommodation and court buildings that are heritage buildings built in previous centuries. There is a huge programme of work that needs to be undertaken but I will not pretend this matter will be resolved quickly.

On Supporting a Victim's Journey, one of the key priorities is to make sure the person is supported at all stages of the process. I am not trying to sidestep the question but our focus, right from the start when the person makes the complaint, through the Garda investigation, the court process and afterwards, is to ensure support is there for any legal processes that take place after conviction, such as parole and so on. That is our focus and we have made considerable progress on it.

Work has been done on a number of interview suites that are available to gardaí when interviewing victims. These are more suitable than Garda stations, some of which are still heritage buildings, if I can describe them as that. There is a big job of work to be done. It will take a long time to modernise all the court accommodation and the court IT system so that proper data are collected and we can avail of the full potential of electronic filing, remote hearings and so on. These are big jobs that will take quite a few years to bring to completion. The current focus is on how we have somebody with the victim at all times to provide support.