Mr. Doncha O'Sullivan:

I will just make a few additional comments. We have worked very closely as part of developing our performance arrangements with all the agencies to integrate the work we are doing around performance targets and KPIs with the work the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform as part of the Revised Estimates volume. As the committee knows, in the Revised Estimates volume each Vote appears alongside key outputs and public service activities and measurements. We now ensure what we are engaging with the agency on is lined up to what is appearing in that so there is a clear link between the money that has been voted and the type of indicators being provided.

Performance targets in the area of policing are obviously a complex area. There is clearly a long way to go and I think all the agencies will accept that. The other thing to say is there are other important actors in the oversight environment for An Garda Síochána, principally the Policing Authority which through the annual policing plan engages with the Commissioner and his senior team around their targets under the policing plan and also holds them to exacting account. It takes part in the monthly resource meeting the Secretary General has referred to. Ourselves, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the authority and An Garda Síochána work closely on managing wider resource issues and what kind of impacts there are. It is internationally recognised as an area where there is more work to be done and obviously ensuring we do not skew activity by putting in indicators that are easy to measure but are not necessarily what communities want. A lot of it goes beyond numbers. The Garda has done much work around assessing community confidence in its services and sometimes that is at least as important as whether or not a particular number of incidents is reported or whatever. There is an awful lot of work in the space but more to do.