Mr. Mark Toland:

We are careful about the language and tone we use in the report but we want to say it as we find it. We triangulate our evidence and our findings by checking case files, talking to staff, members of the public and other partner agencies. We, therefore, do not use just one strain of a finding to make a comment. When we make strong comments, it is because we have found three or four different sources. Ms Fisher mentioned earlier that we have spoken to more than 2,500 members of the organisation from the Commissioner through every rank to gardaí on the front line, civilian staff and reserves and we see people in rank order. We do not have focus groups where we mix with sergeants with inspectors with gardaí because we found that people are less willing to talk. We have not had any trouble getting people to talk to us. We can have a one to one and people are honest. I have had people who have admitted not recording crime. We have had people in large groups who have raised issues. We have done workshops and we have tried a different number of fora. People do not see us like GSOC, which is investigating them; they see us as an organisation that can help them with some equipment or can try to work through some of the blockages. Many people have said to us that they had never had that opportunity previously. We open doors for people to raise issues with us. We try to make sure our reports are balanced and fair but, most important, we want them to be accurate and drive change. We predominantly want to make sure that we help to make policing better to ensure the confidence of the community increases in policing. I am a police officer and I love going back into a Garda station because that is where I worked for 30 years. No aspect of this influences us. I could potentially be a recipient of Garda services tomorrow morning and, therefore, we try to make sure they deliver the best service.

With regard to the culture comments, that is what members said back to us at all ranks and grades. There were some positives. We always try to focus on the positives and not on the negative about being defensive and insular and not accepting sometimes that people have found mistakes in the organisation. Many people contact us. We give out our calling cards. Sometimes people come to us after a meeting or an interview. We always give people what we think is appropriate advice. People have raised issues with me about the way they have been dealt with by a supervisor and, in one place, I got their consent and I spoke to the chief superintendent personally after the visit to highlight an issue in a particular unit. We do not keep secrets. If we find something that is critical, we will always tell the senior officer in the place that we have been in order that he or she is made aware of it.

People also contact us. The public and gardaí ring us and send e-mails. We do not turn people away. If they want to come to see us, we are more than happy to meet them. We are particularly interested if it is a process issue. If it is a criminal matter or if it is an internal matter or related to corruption, we refer them to the appropriate body, such as GSOC, Transparency International Ireland and to their own organisation but we want to retain the confidence of the person who has come to us. We meet people and we try to make sure we provide appropriate support and advice. Most people who ring us tell us they agree with something in the report. After we published Changing Policing in Ireland, people contacted us because they could see something in the report that they felt they had contributed to. Many people rang us to thank us for putting this in the report in the hope that it would make a difference to their daily lives in policing.