Mr. Bob Collins:

It might be unseemly if the chair of the Policing Authority and the Commissioner of the Garda Síochána were to agree too frequently on too many things, but, as the Commissioner said, we are not 1 million miles apart on this issue because the same considerations probably in different ways apply to both of us. We are at opposite ends of the same Christmas cracker; the question is who will get the hat. I think some of those issues can be relatively easily resolved within the architecture. There were two other elements in respect of which the authority felt there was perhaps an imbalance in the way the focus was on the Garda Síochána. We may come to community safety. It is a critical part of the Bill and tends to be but should not be overlooked. This makes very clear arrangements for the way in which the Garda Síochána will be held to account in respect of its engagement with community safety. As everybody recognises, however, this is a shared responsibility, and it is not altogether clear - perhaps it will be reflected in other legislation - that a similarly focused arrangement will emerge whereby the other relevant public institutions will have the same level of scrutiny or be held to account to the same extent as the Garda Síochána is.

The second concern we had - again, lest we not come to it otherwise - is that, while we do not have a huge amount to say about the arrangements for the proposed office of the Garda ombudsman, there is a genuine concern that the issue of incidents of concern and the need to report virtually all of them to the proposed office of the Garda ombudsman may diminish the emerging acceptance of the notion of performance management within the organisation which, undoubtedly, the Commissioner and his senior colleagues wish to see become the norm and widespread. If everything about which the Commissioner has a concern has to be referred externally, it may give the impression that there is little that can be done internally. That will not be the case, but perceptions can be very powerful in this respect. As for the existence of a board, a board could be tremendously powerful and useful to the Commissioner in respect of a whole range of things but I think they could be dealt with relatively simply in order that there is greater clarity for everybody concerned.