Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy has announced major changes in the way the force tackles serious crime and trains gardaí to investigate it.
A senior investigating officer and an incident room coordinator will in future be appointed for every major investigation.
More gardaí are to be trained as specialist victim interviewers and forensic collision investigators.
The initiatives represent modernisation and standardisation.
The new position of senior investigating officer is to be created at inspector rank or higher to manage the investigation of all murders or other serious crimes.
Each of these investigations will also have an appointed qualified incident room coordinator to manage the jobs that need to be done.
There will be more forensic collision investigators for serious road traffic accidents.
Specialist victim interviewers will be trained to deal with children under 14, those with special needs and victims of sex crime.
Mr Conroy is also increasing and strengthening detective force by appointing more detective inspectors and detective superintendents in rural areas, and setting up a new computer system within Pulse to allow officers cross reference information within and between serious crime investigations.
