Mr. Justin Kelly:

Senator Ruane wants me to go through a lot of issues so I will start and Detective Chief Superintendent Noonan may come in. She spoke about resourcing and staffing and I might give her an idea of exactly how that works at present and what our plans are. Any of the victims and the crime typology that we are talking about are all investigated by divisional protective services units around the country. An Garda Síochána divides the country into 21 divisions and in each of those divisions we have a dedicated protective services bureau. The actual investigations are dealt with by highly trained people that we spend a lot of time and resources training. That is the first thing.

Moving on to the interview process, we have 95 specialist interviewers trained around the country. All children under 18 who are the victims of sexual crime will be interviewed. The only people who interview children who are in these terrible and awful situations are these specialist interviewers. Again, the process for selecting and training them takes about two years.

Senator Ruane makes a really good point around making sure we get the right people to do that. We spend a lot of time and effort and we have a lot of processes in place. We probably do not have time to go through it here today about how we pick those people. The people who do that are hugely dedicated. As Senator Ruane can imagine, the type of work they are dealing with is really challenging. We have to put a lot of supports around those gardaí who are doing that type of work.

To go back to Barnahus West, in 2023 - the last year for which we have full figures - we did 56 interviews there. All of the interviews we do around the country – Senator Ruane might know but not everybody would know this – are not done in Garda stations; they are done in specialist interview suites that are child-friendly. They are in locations that are very much anonymous and are not associated with An Garda Síochána or the State.

On her question about whether uniforms are worn, the answer is "absolutely not". These people are all working in plain clothes. The people who do this type of work are handpicked.

On the point the Senator started off with around the liaison persons that we look at for this work, at the moment we have a sergeant who is acting as the liaison person. Again, it is a very experienced person. It is really working out well in Barnahus West. I am sure some of my colleagues here today would agree with that.

What we are looking at, as I mentioned in the opening statement, is what we would describe as "running a competition" to get the people in for this. We will regularise that position in Galway and make that a full-time permanent position and the one in Cork the same. Then we will get the panel in place of people for the one in Dublin when that comes to be set up. I have had a number of meetings with Mr. Noonan in the past few weeks finalising the numbers that we will have for that. Like all these things for us, then it goes into a business process where we get them approved at executive level. Once they are approved, we will run the competitions.

For something like this, it will be a process where we are looking for people who will have the proper experience. We run competency-based interviews. Only people from Mr. Noonan's unit or DPSUs around the country will sit on the interview boards that we will put in place for that. The people that we bring in for those undergo a probationary period.

I hope that gives the Senator some reassurance around the people who we pick for that. She made a good point. They have to be the absolutely right people for that type of work. That is an indication of the personnel.

I do not have that data on prosecution rates with me but I can certainly get that for the Senator. Was there anything Mr. Noonan wanted to add?