Mr. Kevin Bolger:

As the Deputy highlighted, there is a review going on into the call handling and incident response policy, which is approximately 12 months old. I do not know whether recent meetings have brought attention to it but it has commenced. I actually made a submission on it this morning, of approximately ten typed pages, outlining the issues that we believe need to be addressed.

Since its introduction there have been some improvements in the technology around it. It is not all negative but we have serious concerns about how calls get to the control centre and their having to go through the Garda station. We are adding more levels of bureaucracy and forms in a situation where, potentially, we should not have to do that. We need to look outside the box at how technology and everything can support that. Fundamentally, our members want to engage with the community. If someone comes into the station, they want to be able to give them the service they require. That is the fundamental principle of our policing ethos, rather than filling out forms and trying to phone a control centre to get the person a call back.