Ms Helen Hall:

Definitely. I will also ask my colleague, Ms Tumelty, to speak on this in a moment. Looking at spending first, the role of the Policing Authority in legislation is relatively limited in terms of the money given to An Garda Síochána. Our role is really just to advise the Minister annually. We do not have a very strong role. That said, we have nudged our way into trying to be more influential in that. We have been pressing the Commissioner to cost the policing plan and say what can be done for the money. It is difficult. There are very few police services that do that sort of activity-based thing. I do not think any do.

The second is clear from some of our performance reports, which we do twice a year. We have found that historically there has been a real lack of investment in the management information system in An Garda Síochána that would allow the Commissioner, or even the head of finance, head of HR or senior gardaí to have at their fingertips knowledge of where people are and what the cost is of deciding to engage in a particular operation. That is just not there.