Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 17 October 2024

Committee on Drugs Use

A Health-Led Approach: Discussion (Resumed)

9:30 am

Mr. Justin Kelly:

Yes. We have a divisional system of policing. We have our new model of policing, which the Deputy has probably heard about. What that means is that, at regional and divisional level, we provide locally all the resources that they need to operate themselves, so in all the regions and divisions, they have all the specialist functions they need at a local level.

In all regions and divisions, they have all the specialist functions they need at a local level. For complex and particularly challenging or difficult cases, whether on the technical side or something like really specialist interviewers, we hold them all centrally. Many are under my area. We augment and support any operations running. We have done a lot for the officer on the front line around their abilities and what they can now do on the street with hand-held devices. You will see officers on the front line with hand-held devices and they can check people. With the most recent iteration, we can check insurance on the side of the road and so on. Body-worn camera feeds into that; that is the next part. Front-line officers have access to stuff I could only dream of when I was a front-line officer. We looked at the United States and places like that and said to ourselves, "Oh my god, if we had that" but now we actually have it. We have been progressive in that area around providing front-line officers with support. For any of the more complicated cases they come up against, there are local specialists, local specialist detectives, phone analysis or CCTV people - whatever they need - locally.