Vol. 479 No. 3
113 Mr. L. Fitzgerald asked the Minister for Justice the polls and qualitative research, if any, commissioned or carried out by her Department since December 1994, including details of the companies which conducted them and the cost of each poll or item of research. [13098/97]
As I indicated in reply to a similar question yesterday from Deputy Callely, no polls have been undertaken or commissioned by my Department since December 1994.
As regards qualitative research, the position is that a firm of occupational psychologists, Messrs. Saville and Holdsworth, have been commissioned by my Department on two occasions to carry out research on the improvement of selection procedures when persons are being recruited to the rank of garda and to the post of court stenographer. The research in relation to the rank of garda is not yet completed. The cost incurred by my Department in relation to the court stenographer post was £4,589.
While it is not possible in the time available to confirm that no other research of this nature was undertaken since 1994 in the Garda area, I have asked the Garda authorities to let me have information on any such research which I will forward to the Deputy when it comes to hand.
Other research also has been commissioned and carried out for my Department — for example, in relation to the prisons — but these do not, I believe, come within the ambit of what the Deputy had in mind when he refers to "qualitative research".
