Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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I understand that we are not going to make any progress on this matter. Many discrepancies have been highlighted by different Deputies. Garda management has had trouble getting breath test figures, juvenile crime statistics and checkpoint numbers correct. Now we cannot get the homicide figures right. Does the assistant commissioner not accept that there has been serious failure at management level in the Garda? We have been very heavily criticised for it, but Deputy Clare Daly and I have been saying for a long time that the problems in how we deliver policing are unlikely to improve dramatically until a different hierarchy is in place. The current hierarchy has proved itself unfit for purpose in several areas. Does the assistant commissioner think that we are exaggerating when we say that having a police force with which the Irish people will be 100% happy and getting to a new place in terms of how we do policing cannot be done with the existing hierarchy? Does he think it can be done?