Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

It is quite ironic that the Minister mentions improvements in IT. He will know that our automated fingerprinting system, AFIS, was said to be out of date in 2016. Some 17,000 sets of prints have been lost forever. God knows what impact that has had on policing and crime. That system has been out of date since 2016. At the time, replacing it was quoted at €20 million. It has been renewed every year at a cost of €5 million. Some €40 million has been spent on a system that has to be replaced. How is that a good use of taxpayers' money? How is it a good example of using money to solve crime when 17,000 sets of fingerprints have gone missing? The Minister is right; we need to update our IT system. Gardaí need that. However, how is it acceptable that the misuse of this amount of money, this inefficiency and this loss of potentially crime-solving data is continuously allowed to happen? Why was this not dealt with many years ago?

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