Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

We will leave it like that. I thank the Commissioner and his predecessors for bringing about the improvement under discussion.

When I took office, annual reporting of crime figures, which is a matter of some significance though by no means the sole subject of the Commissioner's report, took place in the public domain up to 18 months after the period to which they related had ended. In effect, reporting took place almost two years after the start of that period. I inquired about the practicability of issuing quarterly crime statistics and discovered it was possible. It is natural that there should be counsels of caution in any organisation and I was asked, given that the figures might be awful, if I really wanted them to be published.

I decided the better approach to the publication of crime figures, which are a key performance indicator of Garda activity, would be to carry it out while the subject matter was reasonably fresh. If something is going wrong in a particular Garda division or if there is a surge in the incidence of a particular offence, the public finds out about it three weeks after the end of a quarter. The people whose responsibility it is to attend to such matters have the attention of the public directed to their area or at the trend in a certain crime at a very early date. I have been lucky that the period since the institution of quarterly figure publication has been one in which the Garda has performed relatively well. There has been a downward trend in headline crime figures. If they went up, I would have to take the rough with the smooth.

We have moved dramatically from the scenario in which by the time we received old, out-of-date news, a Garda Commissioner could be long gone from office before we found out what happened during a considerable period of his or her tenure. We have got to a position where the key performance indicator in question is regularly reported on. When one sits at the Cabinet table, one receives a pile of reports every year. Former Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, had a policy that any body which could not report within six months of the end of a year was presumed to be asking for its own abolition. Once that became noted as a general policy, it was amazing to see how in the months of June and July all the required reports which it used to take long periods to submit would tumble in.

I am strongly of the view that if the reporting requirement is to mean anything, reports must be prompt and contemporary. The four-month provision in section 38(1) is apposite. It allows a reasonable period for the compilation of the annual Garda report to a reasonable standard and permits the public to be informed relatively soon after the end of a year what circumstances obtained during it.

Amendment No. 58 proposes to delete the words "As soon as practicable after" and to provide that "Within 30 days of receiving the report, the Minister shall cause a copy of it to be laid before each House of the Oireachtas." I am attracted to the spirit of the amendment. Having imposed a four-month deadline on the Garda Commissioner, it seems slightly at odds with the spirit of the change we are bringing about to provide that I can decide in the fullness of time when I will put his or her report into the public domain. I expect on Report Stage to insert in section 38 a form of words such as "As soon as practicable and, in any case, no later than 30 days". That might be a better way to proceed. It is important that the Department and my colleagues in Government have time to absorb a report. Since this report comes out in May I will not run into a holiday period in which, normally, Cabinet meetings are not held. It means I have time to absorb it and prepare myself for the interviews and so on that follow from it. It is also important that I should be in a position to tell my colleagues at Cabinet what the report contains so that they have time to assess it in a public sense. That is fair. We have to have some time to consider a report but 30 days after its receipt is probably enough time for that process to be done. I am attracted to the spirit of this amendment. Rather than stating "within 30 days" it should state "as soon as is practicable and not later than 30 days". We can prepare an amendment along those lines.