Ms Debra Kirby:

Ireland is unique because the Garda Síochána covers both national and local policing. This creates certain challenges around State security and intelligence. When we speak about intelligence within that context, this immediately concerns a higher level. In the United States, we have had what are known as "fusion centres" in place for a number of years. Basically, these centres bridge the divide relative to local and national intelligence. The idea is that criminal intelligence sometimes feeds into national security issues and national security issues sometimes look at individuals also. This is part of what we have seen happening in France.

The idea of collating and creating a single source of intelligence which more easily feeds up and down the chain relative to who needs to know what is more effective, rather than having multiple individual local units of intelligence that might create barriers to the sharing of information and allowing us know who the real targets are and at what level.