Mr. Martin Callinan:

If the Deputy does not mind, I will avoid responding to the political part of his question. That is another day's work. I will try to address his question from a practitioners-law enforcement perspective. I am a strong supporter of any instrument that would provide additional assistance to the Garda Síochána in bringing the perpetrators of crime to justice. That is a given and would be first and foremost in the minds of those in An Garda Síochána charged with the responsibility of investigating and detecting crime. I believe such a database would be of enormous benefit for a variety of reasons not alone on the prosecutorial side but in providing a clear indication of innocence, if at issue. It would provide the type of balance that might be necessary in forming opinions, suspicions, grounding arrests and so on. In short, I am a strong supporter of the need for the database.