Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the first question, I do not for a second shy away from the fact that it is an extremely challenging job. The work that gardaí do, as the Commissioner alluded to earlier, has become more challenging. There have been more attacks on members and the types of incidents that gardaí have to respond to are hugely traumatic. There is also the fact that there has been a huge amount of change in the organisation in a relatively short period, much of which has come from the recommendations of the Commission on the Future of Policing that were made for very obvious reasons. Furthermore, we do not have as many members as we should have, given the increase in our population. We also have on ongoing industrial relations dispute. There are many challenges and I do not for a second doubt that all of that, collectively, is having an impact on certain members. That said, I meet gardaí day in and day out and engage with them and they are absolutely dedicated to their work. One of the biggest requests they make is for more gardaí. The more gardaí that we have, the easier it is for them to do their work, to spread their workload and to be able to respond in the way that they need to. As I said, I do not for a second say that there are not challenges or issues within the organisation. Any organisation of its kind, with the significant numbers of people involved - 14,000 members as well as more than 3,500 civilian staff - will have challenges and we need to respond to them. As Minister-----