Ms Margaret Tumelty:

There would be many times when there would be a green on some aspect of the policing plan and we would say "No". We would see if that policy is in place, if it has been resourced, if it is actually happening in stations and if that is the experience of people. That is what I talked about a bit earlier. There would be good robust engagement on that. In the Garda annual report, it would report on the progress against the various milestones. Also, in our twice yearly report, we would have quite robust commentary at times as to where failings have been.

What we have also done this year, because we have a statutory obligation to determine the targets, in addition to what is in the policing plan, is to take the policing priorities and put our targets in there because we want the Garda to see this is what we expect. When we say, for example, the first policing priority this year is around protecting and supporting victims when they are vulnerable, we would expect to see at the end of this year increased reporting, increased detections, the recommendations on the child sexual abuse report in place, the maintenance of the service in terms of domestic abuse that was established over the past two years, increased cybercrime capability to address the existing backlog of devices, and consolidation of the divisional protective services unit.

We have been very clear that there are targets in the policing plan to do with public attitudes, measures or crime statistics but we want to see these outcomes. Those targets have been put in with the policing priorities this year to make it very clear it is not just a list of priorities but tangibly this is what we need to see in order for us to say the force has been successful.