Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In fairness to Mr. O'Brien, he obliquely addressed this. He did not address it in detail before the committee because I do not think he wanted to reference what it was that he thought might leak out into the public domain by contributing some credibility to it. However, it was addressed in the documentation I received. I think I mentioned at an early stage to Deputy Mulherin that two operatives within GSOC mistakenly believed that something had found its way into the public domain when this should not have happened and that this was the result of something said by a senior member of the Garda. This then seems to have contaminated the brief that Verrimus was given because it was informed that there had been a breach of security when apparently as far as Mr. O'Brien is concerned, and I presume the other commissioners agree with him, there had been no breach. There was talk of various things being discussed in the public domain but, ironically, the only breach of security for which there is substantive evidence is the document leaked to The Sunday Times. Nobody has suggested that this is a matter of surveillance and it is clearly not a matter of surveillance. For an organisation like GSOC which investigates very serious issues, it is of crucial importance that the integrity of its information systems is maintained. A leak of any information from it regardless of whether it is as a result of surveillance or documentation going out in other ways is a serious matter. I know that is something GSOC is investigating. The breach referred to by the Deputy seems to have been the issue I also discussed with Deputy Ó Snodaigh in respect of which a misunderstanding arose. It would have been helpful if when addressing this committee, the commissioners had explained that issue in the detail in which it was explained to me in the section 103 report I ultimately received.