Dr. Shawna Coxon:

I will tell the Deputy very openly that one of the reasons I was intrigued to come here was that the numbers are higher than anything I had seen in comparison with Canada. I love the Deputy's question because that is the place we want to get to. We want to get to gender balance, looking at the population, and to be reflective of the population.

There are a number of things we are looking at. Certainly, action 16 is something the Commissioner has sponsored, along with the Minister. We also sit on other initiatives around this but it is about looking tactically at some of our procedures like, for example, how we manage family leave. When we speak to women across the organisation those things are pivotal to deciding how long they stay and whether they come into the organisation at all. In addition, we have a women's support network now. It was championed by the Commissioner and has been in place for just under two years. The benefit of that is in women coming together and sharing what barriers they see from their lived experience in the organisation and in looking at how we can get those barriers out of the way in order to we can encourage women not only to come into the organisation but to stay in it. The most compelling reason for women to want to come to An Garda Síochána is when you can see yourself in the organisation.