Dr. Johnny Connolly:

On the question about the dedicated unit or number, we discussed it at length. My view is that doing that tends to marginalise community policing. At present, it is approximately 10% dedicated to community policing units. The real problem here is we do not have any real idea of the demand on the policing service at a local level. There needs to be a good analysis of the data coming in and the demand on the local districts before a decision can be made about exactly how many should be dedicated.

The key part of this is that everyone should look toward the community and see himself or herself as community police, whether he or she is in a specialist unit or otherwise. It is not as if the community police in the organisation are being looked down on, which is where matters seem to stand currently. The key is continuity of service, as Patten report acknowledged. Over a number of years there must be dedication to an area or a location. If a specialist unit comes in briefly because of some serious crime occurring, who are just there to investigate that particular crime, they still must liaise with the garda who is there permanently or on a more continuous basis and who is engaged in problem-solving. That requires continuity and engagement over time. We know that in other countries most issues - approximately 80% in the US and the UK - that come to the attention of the police are non-crime issues which are mostly related to vulnerable people and which need interagency work and sustained engagement over time.

On restorative justice, it is an area in which I have much interest. There is huge potential and there are many good things happening with it. Restorative justice is being rolled out and used more, and it fits into the model we are proposing because it looks at the problem and not necessarily the crime. It aims to be preventive and it engages over time in bringing people together. If it is, a young person and people who are important in his or her life are involved and he or she is helped get through the particular stage.

Restorative justice has much potential. I have done work recently relating to drug debt. In other areas such as sexual violence or hate crime, many are not engaging at all with the criminal justice system. They are not going to the police because they do not necessarily want to end up in a prosecution. They do not want to end up in a court case and even prison does not solve the problem if the offender ends up there as a problem may still continue from within a prison. We must look at alternative and imaginative approaches, and restorative practice has much to offer in that respect.

I do not want to dominate and, therefore, I will finish on JPCs. We received a number of submissions from JPCs and we were struck by them and by our visits by the inconsistencies. Some were doing very good and novel things in different areas but the term "talking shop" was also used quite a bit in a number of submissions and the presentation of data. This does not need to happen at a JPC and data relating to local crime should all be available using modern data techniques on the Garda website. We were more impressed with the local community policing structures. One cannot be overly prescriptive as that might not be what is needed in a rural area. I have worked with a number of them in Dublin city and they have been extremely effective in dealing with serious crime problems. There is much dedication. There is also much resourcing, including the Irish farmers' organisation, Muintir na Tíre, Foróige, the GAA and a huge number of organisations throughout the country that have a desire to perform a role in community safety that we should be able to tap into.