The committee has asked us to address a number of issues in five minutes. I will give a brief overview of each issue and then we will be happy to take whatever questions follow. On the Crowe Horwath report, as we stated during our public session with the Policing Authority two weeks ago, and I repeat here today, An Garda Síochána unreservedly apologises for the unacceptable behavioural and governance failures which led to the widespread inaccurate recording of mandatory alcohol breath tests over a period of time. Significant organisational failures have undermined both the validity of statistical data produced by An Garda Síochána and the contribution of breath tests to road safety. The systems and governance failures that led to the wrongful prosecution and conviction of individuals for road traffic offences is again an unacceptable failure by the Garda organisation for which we unreservedly apologise.
Our focus now is on ensuring such failures cannot and do not occur again. A series of measures relating to governance, systems, data quality, culture, ethics, policy and oversight, allied with individual and collective accountability have either been put in place or are in the process of being put in place. Our approach to regaining public confidence will be centred on achieving the right behaviours, guided by the right values.
Regaining public confidence to levels previously enjoyed will not be achieved overnight and that is why we are focusing on strategic initiatives which will provide solid foundations for public confidence in the medium and long term. These will be matched with actions in the short term to address any outstanding governance, systems, policy and technical failures which caused this crisis.
Measures to be taken include: ethics training for all personnel; reckless or deliberate misrecording of information to be treated as a serious disciplinary breach; the employment of a chief data officer and a number of data quality initiatives; individual and team performance reviews; the restructuring and strengthening of the traffic corps units into roads policing with increased personnel and new functions; and to enhance front-line supervision with 250 sergeant and 50 inspector vacancies to be filled in 2018 with further supervisors provided to front-line policing through civilianisation during the same year.
We are also considering proposals to extend training recently conducted for all senior managers under the auspices of the Kennedy Institute Maynooth University to address this issue through a restorative process. It is intended that this approach will have a greater impact on changing behaviour than the adversarial approach which focuses on who is to blame and what punishment or sanction is required, but ultimately does not change behaviour.
On the Garda budget, it is critical that An Garda Síochána provides an efficient and effective policing and security service within the budget available to us. An Garda Síochána is keenly aware that this is taxpayers’ money and we have a duty to spend it wisely ensuring value for money. Our overtime budget in 2017 was under significant strain throughout the year and required a supplementary budget from Government. In order to ensure that we could stay within the funding made available to us for 2017, it was necessary to reduce non-essential overtime for a period of six days at the end of November.
Policing services, however, continued during that time, in the area of serious and organised crime in the Dublin metropolitan region under Operation Hybrid, under Operation Thor, which is the nationwide anti-burglary initiative, and in a number of other road safety initiatives. Additional resources were provided for these and other such serious operations.
We were provided with a significant budget in 2017. The same level of budget will not be available to us in 2018. It is incumbent on us, as senior managers in the organisation, to ensure we stay within that budget for 2018, particularly in light of the increasing number of Garda personnel and civilians who have joined the organisation in the past number of years, and who will join during 2018. This has been reiterated to all senior managers.
As we outlined two weeks ago to the Committee of Public Accounts, as part of the programme for Government six Garda stations were to be reopened on a pilot basis. The Commissioner was asked by the Department of Justice and Equality to identify those six stations with specific criteria, to include a mix of urban and rural, a minimum of one in Dublin, and a good geographical spread. Furthermore, the Department advised that the stations to be considered for reopening must still be in State ownership. In total, 139 Garda stations were closed originally. Of these, 78 could potentially be reopened. In Dublin, for example, four stations could potentially be reopened. Based on the criteria provided, a scoping exercise was conducted by an assistant commissioner, with views taken from each relevant regional assistant commissioner following consultation with local stakeholders. Census data was also examined, as was data on crime trends from the Garda Síochána analysis service.
Following a report from the assistant commissioner, Mr. O'Driscoll, the acting Commissioner approved the reopening of the following stations. In alphabetical order, they are Ballinspittle, Bawnboy, Donard, Leighlinbridge, Rush and Stepaside. They comprise a station close to the Border, two in Dublin but at either end of the county with one of them large and the other smaller, another in the most southerly part of west Cork, along with a spread across five of the six Garda regions. This reflects ample consideration of the criteria provided to us. In this regard, we are liaising with the Office of Public Works to determine what remedial works need to be done at each station, the length of time it will take to complete the work and the associated costs of the works. Furthermore, an examination of the resources required will be undertaken, which will examine the numbers of staff, equipment and vehicles and the ICT infrastructure required to determine in what order these stations are opened and the timeline for when they are likely to be opened. This review will also take into account the Garda personnel available and any pressing existing resource requirements.
The procedures governing communication between the Commissioner and the Department of Justice and Equality are set out in legislation, under sections 26 and 41 of the Garda Síochána Act. The Commissioner is obliged to keep the Department of Justice and Equality informed of relevant matters relating to policing and security issues. An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice and Equality are finalising a joint communications protocol governing all communications between both bodies. This includes the circumstances and issues which would give rise to the Commissioner informing the Minister for Justice and Equality of matters of concern under section 41 of the Garda Síochána Act.
A member of An Garda Síochána was injured this morning. He was shot in the line of duty. I want to take this opportunity to wish him and his family, and all the people injured in the incident, best wishes.