Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan has said the top priority in the modernisation programme in An Garda Síochána is cultural renewal.
Speaking to a public session of the Policing Authority at Dublin Castle, Ms O'Sullivan said cultural renewal will mean taking the good things like the esprit de corps and can-do attitude and working on the things that are not so good.
Bob Collins for the authority noted that one year on from the Government decision on civilianisation there is no five-year plan and no recruitment in some posts already agreed.
The commissioner said she is not satisfied with the speed of progress, saying MRP stands for Modernisation and Renewal Programme, but she would like to see it also come to mean make rapid progress.
Mr Collins said there is a target of 500 civilian staff to be recruited this year, and halfway into the year he is not optimistic it will be met.
Ms O'Sullivan said she would welcome any help getting the 500 civilians in and she identified where roles can be filled by civilians.
She said there are industrial issues around taking civilian staff into An Garda Síochána and it will take a cultural change.
Policing Authority Chairman Josephine Feehily said recruitment is a slow pipeline and the authority needs a steady stream of submissions for appointments from garda management to keep appointments flowing.
Ms O'Sullivan said progress on civilianisation is the one issue she would like to see delivered within the next six months.
The commissioner said the progress to date she is most satisfied with is the change in public perception of the An Garda Síochána.
She said that in April 2014 it had fallen to an all-time low of 46% satisfaction, and today it is at an all-time high.
Ms O'Sullivan also told the authority that the final report on problems with mandatory alcohol test figures and fixed charge penalty notices will include analysis and recommendations.
Ms Feehily said the two interim reports to date had simply listed the activity by Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn who is preparing the report.
She said normally an interim report gives some preliminary analysis and at this stage where the final report is expected in three weeks it would expected there would be some analysis.
Meanwhile the Policing Authority has contracted an external agency to undertake an audit of the Mandatory Alcohol Testing and Fixed Charge Penalty notices issues and how they were handled.
Ms Feehily said that the Authority has written to An Garda Síochána.
The meeting also heard that 89 homicides were not included in Central Statistics Offices figures because of the way gardaí reported some crimes.
The killings happened between 2003 and 2016.
Garda management stressed that all of these homicides were recorded as such and fully investigated.
Their explanation was that when there is an incident or case in which more than one crime is recorded the most serious charge should be flagged for statistical purposes.
But in 63 cases a lesser charge was the one flagged so the homicide was not recorded in the figures.
Regarding the other 26 killings which were missed, it seems that these were in cases where more than one person died but for the statistics each was flagged as just one homicide.
It seems that many of the cases which were not properly reported related to road deaths.
