Mr. Bob Collins:

As I said, the authority would clearly prefer the existing arrangement to continue in relation to the service plan. That does not diminish in the slightest the engagement the Commissioner would have or, as the authority has always insisted, the ownership the Commissioner would have. As currently drafted, the proposed legislation provides that the Commissioner invites the policing and community safety authority, PCSA, to express its views on what the service plan should contain. The risk in that is that it makes it appear that the new authority is an agent of the Commissioner in that respect and can act only on foot of receiving the request from the Commissioner. That inverts or certainly distorts the relationship of distance and detachment that should exist between the Commissioner and the relevant oversight body.

If the Government persists with this notion and the Oireachtas enacts the provision as it is at the moment, that is to say, that it is not the new authority that develops the policing plan or service plan, then at the very least, it should be provided that the authority's initial intervention in the process is done out of its own statutory capacity, rather than at the invitation of the Commissioner. That is not just a semantic point, less still is it umbrage or sitting on a high horse. It is a meaningfully different arrangement if the authority does it from its own statutory power, as opposed to possibly being perceived as acting as an agent of the Commissioner and only on the Commissioner's request, even if that request is statutorily mandated. That is not an unimportant issue and the same applies to the strategic plan. In any event, the notion that policy priorities or a policing plan would be developed without engagement with the Commissioner is a nonsense. The current statute requires that engagement. It is a clearer statement of the independence and externality of the oversight if it is done in such a way.