Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I put it to the Minister that we need greater co-ordination of data. I have heard anecdotes about bodies being pushed from one side of a river or canal to another to try to get a Garda division off the hook. When insurance companies charge different premia depending on one's postal district, that suggests a need for meaningful districts and areas allowing us to consider health and policing records and other data.

I am glad the Minister stated in his reply that there may well be a review of such areas, and I ask that he and his colleagues in Cabinet put their heads together to co-ordinate the various areas that they use. The confusion, overlap and disparity between them make it very difficult to formulate meaningful policies based on data produced by the Central Statistics Office or used by individual Departments. It illustrates the wider difficulty and danger in Departments' co-ordination. If the Minister could address the Garda policing districts, that would be a step in the right direction.

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