Mr. Bernard Joyce:

The idea of having intermediary engagement with other groups is important. Part of one of our calls, and I am sure those of other civil society groups, was having liaison officers from An Garda Síochána in terms of community policing which is significant. I see that as the pathway. If I am right, there is not enough investment, support and training. In fact, this does not get the necessary emphasis or priority.

Community policing is about establishing and building on a relationship but also holding and sustaining the relationships with the community. Specifically, when we talked about young people here as well, it is about engaging with those young people and giving them confidence. Before incidents happen, it is about working with youth programmes, community groups, Traveller organisations, migrants and other minority groups, and the LGBT, and then establishing those relationships and looking at how you bring them into the work that is happening.

The Garda Síochána, if I am right, does not only do policing and has other roles and functions. It is about building that awareness right across the spectrum. The Garda diversity plan is also in place and there is an oversight group within that. That is another opportunity. Within the Traveller sector, there is a national Traveller Garda advisory committee which the Irish Traveller Movement and the other organisations are part of. It is establishing those relationships and functions and working with those who are leading in that direction.

Those are the areas which we can build on, complement each other and work together on. Where there is more engagement, there are more successes. When we see that, there are absolutely more successes but there can be blind sides. There are Travellers who are LGBT, there are those who are in direct provision who are LGBT and there are migrants. It is cross-cutting and inter-sectional. We need to ensure that is embedded and understood right across the board, including - we talked a little bit about this - in the area of mental health, which is obviously a big issue as well. We need to ensure that there is a holistic and real approach that is warranted in terms of meeting the needs of today.