James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I will open each category and will invite individual members to speak under each category. I will take each Vote at a time. We are dealing with Vote 20, Garda Síochána; Vote 22, Courts Service; and Vote 24, Justice technical matters. We will start with Vote 20, Garda Síochána. I ask members to raise their hands to indicate they wish to speak and we will take them in order. We will not have time limits as such in this meeting; it is not that kind of meeting. We will take questions and answers as they arise and get through it quite efficiently. When members are posing questions, I ask them to refer to the particular subhead.

I will kick off with a question on the Garda Vote. There is an allocation for an increased investment in ICT equipment under subhead A.6. We are all aware of the 999 calls being dropped. We had a significant debate with the Garda Commissioner and the head of the Policing Authority recently. It has been mentioned at this committee and will be in the new year again. Does the ICT investment relate to the issue with dropped 999 calls? Is there anything in this Estimate that would go towards that?