Mr. Pádraig Dalton:

It is not necessarily about the system. Rather, the issue is what is going into the system. This relates to one of our key recommendations, namely, the importance of creating the criminal recording rules document. If there was clarity in document form about how different crimes should be recorded and that document was made available to everyone who had to input the data, one would introduce a systematic way of consistently capturing types of information. The problem is that there is not really clarity at the moment and no document is in use. This is why we have prioritised this document as one of the three actions that we want to push with the Garda. We have been clear. We are working with the Garda and are being open and transparent with it about what we view as the quality issues. We have also been open and clear with it about what we see as the solutions. Of course, we are not criminologists. Our focus is on trying to help the Garda improve its data. The key point is that it needs to improve the quality of its PULSE data for its own purposes first. If it does so, then that will have a benefit for the Garda and the recording of crime statistics.