Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 7 November 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality
Policing Matters: Discussion (Resumed)
Mr. Drew Harris:
What I am saying is that I recognise all of the difficulties that we have within the organisation. We regularly meet. Ms Cooke meets monthly and I regularly meet with the staff associations. On the morale issues that we face, I am not avoiding any of these issues in terms of the difficulty of policing. At the same time, I would point to people's sense of belonging with the organisation, their sense of duty that they feel to the people of Ireland and their recognition of how important their work is. It is not all a negative story, but at the same time we do recognise the stresses that are on people, the fatigue that they are reporting, the stresses and strains around the workload and the reported oversight that they feel is intrusive. We recognise all of that. I do not dodge or deny any of it. As it has been raised, we have done our very best to deal with it and continue to work to do so.