Mr. Drew Harris:

We need a new approach to this because what we have done over the last eight to ten years has not moved the situation on. I do not know that the situation has deteriorated but what we have done has not actually found sufficient traction to move the matter on.

Other police services have had more success than ourselves and we are looking at what has happened in those. We can draw some examples from how they have improved their services in a second language and we intend to do that. We can come back quickly then with the overall plan and I will be responsible for its governance. I give that undertaking to the committee.

In respect of the hiring process, we had 10% set aside for an Irish language stream and there were advantages involved for those individuals. They gave a commitment that they would serve for a period of time in the Gaeltacht but the advantage for them was that they would be, in effect, fast-tracked and would gain admittance to the organisation more quickly. Last year we swore in 600 Garda members, of whom only three had level 4 proficiency in Irish. If we were anywhere near that 10% target it would just take an administrative decision and a stroke of the pen to increase it to 15% or 20% but we are not actually in that position. That is regretted. I do not think we will be in that position but if we got to it then we would obviously look at it afresh. Given the requirement on us to provide a bilingual service, we would look very favourably on increasing that target from 10%.

We are looking towards how to address our recruitment campaign for next year. As I said, we are recruiting both full-time members and Garda reserves. I ask Mr. Mulligan to set out some of the specific actions we hope to take to have better outreach for our recruitment.