Mr. John Redmond:

There is very clearly one thing. Of course there is the day-to-day workings of GSOC. They are the protocols which were agreed originally between the Garda Commissioner, at the time, and the ombudsman commission. In our view the association should have been made aware of the protocols before they were agreed, or asked its opinion on the protocols which would be agreed, or were to be agreed, and subsequently were agreed. We were not and we read about them in public which was the first we heard of them. That is fadó, fadó, which is fine.

On interaction regarding legislative constraints, GSOC, under one of the sections that I referred to earlier, feels that if one is the subject of a complaint which it feels and determines is inadmissible, it is obliged to tell the person complained about that it has received a complaint even though it is inadmissible. In our view there are two options which should be available to GSOC. First, it should not have to tell the person at all. If there is an inadmissible complainant why do I need to know somebody has made a complaint which GSOC has deemed inadmissible? Nothing else is going to happen to the complaint so I do not need to know about it. The complaint is going to upset and annoy me so do not tell me at all. Either that or tell me the content of the inadmissible complaint, where it happened and what is supposed to have occurred.