Mr. Drew Harris:

There are no plans at the moment. At the same time, the structure that was put in place, as I have said internally, was not handed down to us on a tablet of stone. It is our structure and it is one for us make work. For every division we add, we are taking people from the front line because the additional chief superintendent, superintendents, inspectors and sergeants all come from the Garda ranks. As we are an organisation which draws the vast majority of promotions from within, to create more structures is to create management on-costs. There is a balance between what the structure set out to achieve and the operational delivery. One of the strong aspects of the divisional model as it is at the moment is the divisions were to be autonomous units, that is, sufficient to deal with the great majority of policing challenges they might face. That includes the protective services. When they were formed one of the big issues was insurance fraud. That has dissipated through detection of no insurance. In the meantime, general fraud has increased, including cyberfraud.

They were to be given resources so that they could have some of that specialisation locally - likewise, cybercrime was to be a regional specialisation - and every division, unlike before, would have a specialist detective superintendent to oversee crime. There are many operational benefits but I cannot replicate that out 28 times into the old model. It is just too expensive and it draws up too many resources. All of this is a compromise.

The other issue about having these service delivery units is that autonomy then comes with the ability to make decisions. Given the fast pace of policing, decisions have to be made locally, particularly in crisis or difficult situations whereas our old model was a very hierarchical model. Things were referred up the line constantly and that led to slower decision-making and often opportunities were lost. There is a lot around the organisational design, which is strong. I recognise people's concern in respect of the remaining divisions and their size, but all of that was balanced throughout July and August 2023. Changes were made and there was some further investment. At the same time, one has to step forward carefully because structures cost personnel, both Garda members and Garda staff.