Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Like the Minister, I imagine, I have spoken to many members of An Garda Síochána since the report was published. Broadly, they welcome it. They have made the interesting observation that there was nothing in it that they could not have told us about resources. I am referring specifically to the issue of rosters. There has been significant criticism of the rostering system, the matter of Garda vehicles and the fact that many trained gardaí are tied down in doing administrative work. All of this arises from the cutbacks made in recent years. One of the most annoying things for me and, more importantly, front-line members of An Garda Síochána was the terminology used of smart policing and modernisation that we kept getting from the former Garda Commissioner, Mr. Martin Callinan, and the former Minister, Deputy Alan Shatter. It was nonsense. The bottom line was that they were dressing up the cutbacks and their impact as being something else. The report shows the urgent need for real modernisation and to deal with the impact of the cutbacks. There will be a challenge for the Government in deploying resources, although I recognise that the Minister went some of the way in the recent budget. The key issue is the criminal justice working group, about which there is some confusion. The Minister confirmed to me in the Dáil recently that she had established a criminal justice working group when I asked her about the penalty points matter. Has the group been established?

See this speech in context