Mr. Paddy Mahon:

The best use of available resources should be a partnership or taskforce, on occasions, between the local authority ideally with support from the Department and the Garda, not essentially in every local authority but in some where it is required. The local authority sector does have equivalent taskforces in the area of waste enforcement and areas where dog wardens need to work in partnership with An Garda Síochána. We have and are developing protocols in those areas. This is worth exploring. As mentioned in our statement we are very open to exploring how a service level agreement, SLA, can be developed between ourselves and the Department similar to what is in place with one of the animal welfare bodies. This sector is very open to such an arrangement. This is about how best to apply resources that are scarce. I will ask Mr. Boland to deal with research.