Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Pádraig Ó Ríordáin and his group for the report provided to the Government. We approved it yesterday. It builds on the Toland report and sets out an 18-month timeframe during which the Department of Justice and Equality is to be reformed. It involves dividing the Department into two divisions, one with responsibility for home affairs and the other with responsibility for justice and law reform, with a deputy secretary general heading each and with Civil Service programme managers in the Department to ensure that the Minister's office is kept fully abreast of what is happening in those areas. Quite radically, it involves a real change across the Department, breaking up the work into areas such as policy, operations and legislation. This is very different from the silos we typically have in Departments whereby everything is broken up by policy area. Within each policy area, the person in charge is supposed to be responsible for everything, from legislation and communications to parliamentary questions and policy documents. If what is proposed works, it could be a very good model for the modernisation and reform of other Departments. Let us see whether it works in this Department first.

There is no requirement that all Secretary General positions be open to public competition. On this occasion, we took the view that it was important that the person who became Secretary General had experience of being the Secretary General of a Department. It is, therefore, essentially a promotion. It involves somebody moving up from being a Secretary General in an important but relatively small Department to being a Secretary General in a much more challenging and complex Department. It is a matter of promotion rather than open competition. The post of Secretary General of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which is being vacated as a result of the promotion, will be open to full competition. That decision was made yesterday also.

On tackling crime, there are many things the Government can do and is doing - never mind our target for the future. Since the end of 2016, the number of members of the Garda force has increased by 600 and recruitment continues. We are investing in new Garda stations - modern stations - like the one that can be seen in Kevin Street and the one in Sligo, in addition to some others that are very much going ahead. There is also investment in Garda ICT and vehicles. The current budget for the Garda is unprecedented, amounting to €1.6 billion. It is an enormous budget.

Once again, I have to say to the Deputy - I know he does not accept this - that it is about more than resources. If one wants public services to function well, staff and resources are only part of the picture. Reform is needed. One needs to make sure the resources and staff are deployed in the best interest of those who pay for them and those who use and need to the services. That has not always been the case. It will be very much part of the role of the new Commissioner and his team to ensure that staff and resources are deployed in the interest of the taxpayers who pay for them and the citizens who need them.

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