Mr. Joseph Nugent:

That is fine.

In broader terms, the organisation has in excess of 500 stations around the country, some of which date from before the foundation of the State and many years prior to that. The need for capital investment in refreshing our sites is quite obvious. The Commissioner has often said that if we were to replace 10% of these stations over ten years, some 50 stations would require change on an annual basis. Clearly, the financial impact of that would be significant.

We operate on the basis of the capital allocation that is available. We made a case to the national development plan for additional sites. At the outset, the Commissioner referenced a site in Northern Cross that would cope with a broad population expansion in the general Coolock-Darndale-north Dublin domain, as an area that we consider needs to be progressed.

As well as refreshing the stock we have, we also need to look to those areas where there is population growth, as well as other issues such as crime trends etc. We operate with the budget provided to us and we maximise what we can achieve around that.