On 7 June 200 new Garda recruits will be passing out from Templemore, which is very welcome. Many of them are needed in many regions around the country. However, many of the Garda recruits, as we are aware, may not be young people who do not have any ties. Some of them are married and have families, mortgages, etc. and they will be allocated to different stations around the country. In the past, the situation was that if, for instance, a Garda recruit from north Leitrim was allocated to a station in Wexford, he or she could apply to have a swap with somebody. That common-sense position was put in place. For instance, if a Garda recruit was from some part of the country and needed to be within commuting distance of his or her family home, perhaps he or she had an elderly relative to whom he or she needed to be close, under a welfare system, he or she could move back to somewhere close to the family home. We are told the Garda Commissioner is getting rid of it and that will no longer be the case. It is time the Government made sure the common-sense situation that was applied in the past is maintained because it makes common sense in any workforce for people to be able to be accommodated. That is all this was doing and it needs to be restored.

The Garda Commissioner is seeking to implement an ambitious programme of reform. That has come from the commission which evaluated the Garda. We have to put our confidence in the Commissioner to manage human resource issues in a way that is in accord with that reform programme. I am sure he will seek to be accommodating to individuals as best he can but we have set him an ambitious programme of change and we have to give him the support as he gets on with that challenge.