Mr. Brian Purcell:

It is imminent but I must be careful. This is not the normal situation in which I, as Secretary General, would find myself in front of the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality or any other committee. This is not a normal situation. An investigation was carried out when the complaints were made to the confidential recipient. The Garda Commissioner would have had carried out an investigation into those complaints. Once that investigation was carried out, under the terms of the same set of regulations - I think it is section 10 - the Commissioner is then obliged to refer the allegations and the outcome to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, for its consideration in accordance with agreements that are in place. On top of this, in this particular case something in the region of ten volumes of files were sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, who directed no prosecution in respect of these cases. I have outlined this and have tried to be careful, not for reasons of running down the clock.

The position in respect of the Garda Commissioner is that an investigation is carried out by someone at chief superintendent level. It then is investigated by an assistant commissioner in the Garda and a further investigation is taken by a deputy commissioner. These investigations are endorsed by the Commissioner, who sends back a report and, as I said, at the same time it goes to the DPP. I referred earlier to the third crucial element of this. While I am not in any way saying that Mr. Guerin did not look at this, I am saying it is not covered, perhaps because for the reasons he outlined clearly in his report he did not have an opportunity to consider the perspective of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. However, GSOC would have had the allegations and would have had the report on what the Commissioner had done in respect of those allegations.

As for the Minister, I outlined how the relationships between the Garda Commissioner and the Minister, the Garda Commissioner and the Secretary General of the Department and the Garda Commissioner and the Department are based on trust. The Commissioner is responsible for the maintenance of order and discipline within the force. Neither the Department nor the Minister is an investigatory body. We do not micro-manage the Garda and the Commissioner has responsibility in law for the operation of the Garda. The Department and the Minister are faced with a situation if we have reports coming back from the Garda Commissioner regarding matters of serious concern such as these, where substantial investigations have been carried out by the Commissioner, where it has gone to the DPP and where we know it also has gone to GSOC. For the Minister then to make a decision to establish an investigation under section 102, in circumstances in which the Garda Commissioner is stating there is no breach, no criminal offences and no breach of discipline, effectively one would have a situation in which one could loosely say it is not a commission of investigation one needs but a new Commissioner. I refer to a situation in which one does not accept the bona fides of the Garda Commissioner, who is charged under statute with the management of the force, in circumstances where there have been three elements - I acknowledge I am repeating myself - namely, the Garda investigation, the files going to the DPP and the papers going to GSOC.

One should bear in mind that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission is the independently appointed statutory body that has the remit of investigating complaints of malpractice in An Garda Síochána. As it would have had it, the assurance was there that it had seen the same allegations and had received the report from the Garda Commissioner. Had GSOC considered that something was wrong, it would have been in a position to take action. Consequently, in such circumstances, the Minister would have to decide he was not going to accept what the Garda Commissioner had told him, he would be ignoring the fact that the DPP had decided there was no criminal prosecution to be brought, and he would be ignoring the fact he was aware of the position in respect of the body charged with the investigation of complaints against members of the Garda, which is GSOC, not the Minister for Justice and Equality, not the Department of Justice and Equality and not the Secretary General of that Department.

Knowing that in those three sets of circumstances those matters had been investigated, the Minister then would have had to say that he did not accept what the Commissioner was saying - the Minister might not have to say that he does not accept what the DPP says because that only relates to criminal offences - and that he was ignoring the fact that the body that is statutorily appointed-----