Mr. Brian Purcell:

The threshold is quite a high one. It is the section 102 inquiry I referred to earlier. The threshold is that the Minister must be satisfied that there may have been a criminal offence committed by a member of An Garda Síochána or a breach of discipline. That threshold is quite high. The ombudsman commission has exactly the same power to initiate a section 102 investigation. That is why I was explaining earlier that we were aware it had the documentation regarding the allegations, which gave some assurance that this matter had been considered by the independent body. The threshold is quite high. That was what I was referring to when I was responding to the Senator. For the Minister to take an allegation or allegations and refer it to GSOC for a section 102 investigation in circumstances in which the Garda Commissioner had already said there was nothing wrong and the DPP had said there was no criminal offence - that rules out the criminal offence element from the beginning - then the Minister would want to be absolutely satisfied that a serious offence was committed to discard the advice of the Garda Commissioner.

The Commissioner is the person in charge of the force and statutorily charged with maintaining its good order and discipline. One has to place some credence in a report by a Commissioner. If one does not believe the report the Commissioner gives, effectively one is saying one does not accept his word on it. There is a trust element there.