Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

At this stage, most people are of the opinion that all is not well in terms of how our police force is operating and how the Minister deals with it and the inspectorate. We realise that GSOC does not have much power or funding, but it has been treated poorly in recent days. Once the news broke, the urgency and eagerness of members of the Government in attacking the GSOC was disconcerting. I have met Mr. Simon O'Brien, Ms Carmel Foley and Mr. Kieran FitzGerald several times and found them to be professional. The GSOC would like to be a professional organisation, if only it were allowed to be.

Incidents are expected to blow over and often do. It has been 18 months since we raised the penalty points issue in the House. From the word "Go", the Minister and the Garda Commissioner were eager to minimise and dismiss any allegation that we relayed from the whistleblowers. That was the Minister's main concern. He eventually organised an internal inquiry despite the clamour for an independent one. Internal inquiries - gardaí investigating themselves - were never going to provide satisfactory answers.

The Minister did not handle the Roma issue well. He refused to allow the GSOC to engage in the matter. The GSOC asked to be allowed to examine the incredible episodes that occurred at the Corrib gas field.

It requested permission to investigate under section 106, but the Minister refused.

In spite of his claims to the contrary, the Minister's performance on "Prime Time", dealt with by the Standards in Public Office Commission, which now wishes to wash its hands of it, did not give him a clean bill of health. The SIPO has stated that its remit does not allow it to investigate the issue any further. This also makes it plain that the SIPO does not have an appetite to hold the Minister for Justice and Equality to account. This was always going to blow over as well. Everything blows over, by the look of things, but it is not just about the Minister. There is a huge gap in public confidence today in how the Garda Síochána operates, how the Minister relates to the Garda Commissioner, and his refusal to give the GSOC the power that it should have. He completely diminished our efforts on a police Bill last summer, which contained the idea that there should be an independent police body as a buffer between the Minister and the Garda Commissioner. It makes sense and it is part of international best practice. This will probably all blow over again for the Minister, but the credibility of the Government is at stake as well.

It is not too long ago since the general election, when all the talk was about things being done differently. There would be transparency and accountability. That is not what we are getting. We are getting the opposite. In the last couple of days, the Taoiseach has been pointing the finger at the GSOC. What does this tell us? Where are we going? There seems to be no end to it.

Dr. Vicky Conway and Professor Dermot Walsh pointed out a long time ago that the relationship between the Minister for Justice and Equality and the Garda Commissioner is over-politicised. The Garda Commissioner is answerable to nobody other than the Minister. Given that they are such good buddies, he is effectively answerable to nobody. He is supposedly answerable to the Dáil, but we in the Dáil have effectively no say in what goes on. The Cabinet makes the decisions and there is a small executive within that which make the serious decisions. To say that the Commissioner is answerable to the Parliament is a joke. He is answerable to nobody. The Minister is not giving the GSOC the power to hold the Commissioner to account. The GSOC has the power to investigate individual complaints from the public into individual gardaí. It cannot examine practices, policies and procedures of An Garda Síochána, or even look sideways at the Commissioner. Is this a healthy structure? Is this good enough? Does the Minister honestly think that the people are going to continue to believe in the Garda Síochána?

In the past, the Garda operated with the consent of the people. That is gone. The Minister has helped to erode it, and it is unfair to all the hard working gardaí in the country that they have been undermined. It is not the foot soldiers who are causing the problem but the hierarchy. It was not the foot soldiers who pressed the button on the PULSE system and terminated all the fixed charge notices but the hierarchy. It was not the foot soldiers who defended the hierarchy but the Commissioner and the Minister for Justice and Equality, who were prepared to defend them no matter what happened.

The Minister has been dismissive of any allegations coming from anybody that did not suit him. This has brought the whole issue into disrepute. The Minister carries a huge responsibility for undermining public trust and confidence in our police force.

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