Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I am not of the view that it should be replaced, but I believe it should be developed. I fully accept the Deputy's point that the Garda should have leading edge technology available and that the system should be improved and speeded up. One of the questions that has arisen is whether it would make more sense for gardaí to operate the PULSE system through call centres and have the entries made by a specialist staff so that they do not have to leave their normal duties. This is something the commissioner is pondering.

The figures quoted by the Deputy for terminals do not match up to reality because 85% of all incidents are reported in a station where there is a terminal and 75% of all gardaí have direct access to a PULSE system in their stations. The Deputy is including in his figures stations which are open for two hours on a number of days a week and asking whether they should be counted in as stations which have no access to the PULSE system.

Ideally, every Garda station should have access to the PULSE system. I hope, with broadband technology and the like, that it will be possible to move quickly to that situation. That is where we should be going. However, the Deputy is asking that PULSE should be scrapped and we should start again only a short number of years after it has come into operation. That is the type of decision which, were I to take it, would be wholly irresponsible. Simply to throw away something which cost a great deal of money to develop and start again would be folly.

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