Mr. Adrian Kane:

I thank Senator Boylan. I can take that, if it is okay with the Chair. First, we would see the announcement by the Tánaiste at the weekend as significant. It is the first time that any Government spokesperson or any party leader has given a commitment on that. Two weeks ago, we had a meeting with Deputy Ryan in which we had also tabled this proposal but we did not get anything like the commitment made by the Tánaiste on the weekend. We do not want to be prescriptive at this stage but I do want to outline the different models out there. Maybe if we begin at home, even within this Department, we have a dedicated policing unit in the airport that is in place for the last 40 to 50 years and is a successful model. They have authorised officers who have the right to detain; stop and search; to issue fixed penalty notices; to arrest; and powers of enforcement. The IFI and their officers have a similar suite of measures as well. They are mostly enacted, as I understand it, by by-law with the DAA. That is one model. Then, if we look across Europe, in which they tend to have different levels of policing, we see national, municipal or regional police forces and, in some cases, police dedicated to transport.

The UK has a transport police but that is paid for by transport providers. Looking at the airport model, it is not a full police force. We do not want to start dividing if there is to be some sort of political consensus on a move towards dedicated policing. We do not want to get into fighting over looking for one thing and it being something else. It is significant that the Tánaiste said what he said. Coming out of today's hearing, we need some process and we ask that we have some engagement and the right to consultation to see the evolution of this. The people who know most about this subject are those to the left and the right of me and some of our members and representatives in the Gallery. As Senator Boylan quite rightly said, whatever about us as passengers fleetingly coming across this, when you are working on it eight hours a day, ten hours a day, etc., and dealing with it every day, it becomes quite wearing. We have and we might share with the committee some more results of a more recent survey we did specifically on drug taking and racial abuse. We can share that with the committee maybe later in the discussion. We are not trying to be prescriptive on the basis of dividing, but those are the types of models out there, and we want engagement as to how we might develop that.