Ms Josephine Feehily:

We have asked to be kept informed. They have preliminary engagement with the Workplace Relations Commission to help them with it, and I think that is a good idea. We plan to share our views with the Workplace Relations Commission, when they get going, so that they can see what we think we are seeing, in terms of the regulations. The disciplinary regulations, like lots of other things in this realm, are very detailed and prescriptive, which is why they miss a step quite often. They are not like any discipline code. There is a code of practice on disciplinary procedures, which is in place, under the Workplace Relations Commission. The regulations do not look anything like that. They are quite different. The range of penalties are very strange, to my eyes.

As there is no individual performance management system in the Garda Síochána, they use discipline to do things that in another organisation would be done in a performance management context. That is why, under the discipline code, one will find oneself with a penalty called "advice". Such a term belongs in a performance management system where one can have a chat about one's performance and be given improvement and development advice. A penalty called advice should not be one of the options available under disciplinary regulations, in my opinion. The review is at a very preliminary stage but because the Garda Síochána has engaged professional help I hope it will move along.