Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring:

I thank the Chairman and members of the joint committee for giving us the opportunity to meet them. We are delighted to have the opportunity to talk to them about the priorities of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, in its work in the near future and perhaps the next decade.

As the committee will be aware, I chair a commission of three persons. As stated, I am joined by the commissioner, Mr. Carmel Foley. The committee may be aware that our fellow commissioner, Mr. Kieran FitzGerald, is indisposed.

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission works side by side with other independent agencies, notably the Garda Inspectorate and, in recent months, the Policing Authority. We all seek to provide for oversight of the policing system. Within this framework GSOC's main function is to deal as effectively and fairly as possible with matters which involve alleged misconduct on the part of members of An Garda Síochána.

GSOC has been operational since May 2007 and we look forward to celebrating its tenth anniversary in May next year. We believe, therefore, that this is an appropriate time to reflect on the work of the commission in the past decade.

GSOC operates in line with the provisions of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 and its limited amendments. Almost a decade of experience of implementing the provisions of this detailed legislation has highlighted the fact that in several areas it does not allow for proportionate, effective and user-friendly handling of complaints and oversight. In particular, Part 4 of the Act is, essentially, too cumbersome to allow GSOC to function effectively. I refer to the section in the Act that deals with complaints, investigations and other procedures. It is in need of review and an overhaul.

The objectives of the commission, as set out in section 67 of the Act, are "to ensure that its functions are performed in an efficient and effective manner and with full fairness to all persons involved" and "to promote public confidence in the process". The committee clearly have an interest in ensuring tthese objectives are achieved by the commission. We believe revising the legislation to incorporate the lessons learned in the past decade of operation into future arrangements would enable GSOC to function much more efficiently, effectively and fairly in the next decade and better promote public confidence in the process. It would increase confidence in the oversight system and, in turn, the policing system.

In our submission to the committee we have highlighted some of the main problems and how we believe the system could be more proportionate and more resolution oriented. This would be to the benefit of the public in the early disposal of a complaint, but it would also bring matters to an efficient end for the gardaí involved. We are conscious that for everyone, including gardaí, delay causes distress.

We have included an example of a recent case before the commission as an appendix to our submission, as we believe this is the best way to illustrate the need for the complaint handling system to become more proportionate and more resolution oriented. I will start by briefly relating the details of the case to the committee.

A complaint was made to GSOC in September last year about an incident that had occurred at a large public event that month.

The complaint alleged that a garda was verbally abusive to a woman when she was trying to comply with conflicting instructions from gardaí directing traffic at the event. I will not repeat the language allegedly used by the garda in this room, but members can read it in the submission. The complainant went to speak to the garda again after her car was parked and he continued in the same vein. She then approached a sergeant, whose initial response was that she obviously did not follow the garda's instruction. The sergeant then said that the garda would be spoken to about the matter.

The complainant highlighted that she was a 55 year old woman who had never been in trouble previously. That was information she clearly thought was important to give to GSOC. The complaint was made immediately after she returned home. It was admitted and designated for an unsupervised disciplinary investigation, as the Act provides for this type of complaint. A letter was sent to internal affairs within the Garda Síochána under section 94(1) of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, and a superintendent was appointed to carry out the unsupervised investigation in December. The final report was received by GSOC in July. The garda concerned was found to be in breach of discipline on two grounds, misconduct and discourtesy, and fined €100 for each breach. The sergeant was found not to be in breach of discipline, as it was stated that it was not possible to reprimand the garda due to the pressures of work on the day.

The entire process took nine months. It involved five interviews and, in terms of human resources, it involved one superintendent, at least one member of internal affairs, four Garda members, two civilians and three GSOC personnel. There is clearly quite a cost associated with such a process. We have become recently aware that there may be an appeal in this matter, which will add further time to the process. The outcome for the complainant was that she was informed that the garda was formally sanctioned, but she has not received an apology for how she was treated from anyone in the Garda to our knowledge.

We see this as an example of the type of case which should be dealt with by Garda management. This member of the public should have been contacted either on the evening of the event or the following morning, and an apology should have been forthcoming. No person should be spoken to by anyone in the fashion outlined in this complaint. GSOC's view is that such an incident should be, and can be, properly handled by the Garda. In this instance, there was a finding of a breach of the discipline regulations and a fine, which is of some comfort to the complainant, yet it is not what she wanted. It is clear that the regulations are centred on gardaí and do not provide for an appropriate response to the member of the public affected by the misconduct.

I am sure the committee will agree that this describes an overly bureaucratic, complainant unfriendly process. Our vision is that, in the next decade, this type of complaint, which represents some 20% of the cases we get, would be considered a "service level" issue and would be dealt with in a more proportionate, resolution-focused way. The first of our key priorities that we have set out is that minor service-focused issues should be resolved in a more efficient and proportionate manner by leveraging the existing line management systems within the Garda. This would allow more leeway for resolution of issues, rather than focusing on retribution. We believe it could be achieved more efficiently through line management than through the formal process dictated by the discipline regulations.

GSOC could become a second port-of-call for issues that could not be resolved, as is the system operated by our counterparts in the UK. In other words, if the woman came to us, we would assess it to be a service level complaint and send her back to the appropriate person within the relevant station. She could then come to us if the management of her complaint was not being dealt with or was not being dealt with to her satisfaction. We do not envisage us stepping back totally but that is the type of complaint that the Garda should deal with. If I was rudely treated in a shop, I would expect the management, if I made a complaint, to deal with it; I would not expect to be told to go somewhere else.

Under our second priority, informal resolution mediated by the Garda Ombudsman could also be used more widely and effectively in the future by giving the ombudsman the power to decide whether it should be attempted, as is the case for the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland. That provision has been in place in the North since 1998. Furthermore, in 2000, the ombudsman there was given the role, where appropriate, to mediate. Why can we not look at more information resolutions where GSOC is the decider?

The third area we are concerned about relates to the lack of proper oversight and accountability in formal disciplinary investigations conducted by Garda investigating officers under section 94, in circumstances when it is appropriate for this mechanism to be used. This should be addressed. This is necessary to promote public confidence in the process for resolving complaints, which is one of the two objectives laid out for GSOC in the Act. The co-operation of the Garda would be required to achieve this. There are several elements to this. In unsupervised investigations, a complainant’s right to a review of the complaint investigation by GSOC under section 94(10) should be rendered meaningful. At the moment, we can examine the process that has taken place but the outcome stands. If there has been finding of no breach and there is a complaint to us where section 94 has been invoked, we can examine the process and we may find there was a problem with it but the outcome stands and that leaves complainants often frustrated, if not angry.

In supervised investigations, eliminating the need for a second senior Garda officer to review an investigation file, when it has been supervised and reviewed by a GSOC officer, could render this process more efficient. We also believe that the Garda deciding officer should be obliged to provide a rationale to GSOC when disagreeing with the ombudsman's recommendations in supervised investigations. This is also relevant to those investigations into non-criminal matters undertaken by GSOC itself. GSOC’s powers to secure co-operation from gardaí to complete this type of investigation under section 95 also need to be further clarified and bolstered. There is no uniformity of response. When we send recommendations to the Garda, discipline is for them and we are happy to say, "That is your area; you make a decision", but we would like a rationale in order that when we go back to the complainant who has come to us, we can at least say, "This is the discipline outcome and this is the rationale for that outcome". Complainants may still be unsatisfied but, at least, they would understand a decision was made not to discipline, to discipline and impose a penalty or to provide for severe penalty. We are sometimes given information as to why a decision was made but, in other cases, we just get an outcome. The Garda must give us an outcome but the rationale for it is sometimes absent. We need more clarity on behalf of complainants regarding our co-operation with the Garda.

My final point is that continuous improvement in the timeliness of conducting disciplinary investigations and the provision of information by the Garda still needs to be encouraged. While there have been definite improvements since GSOC first highlighted the extent of the problems experienced with timeliness in 2013 and since the legislative amendments of last year, there is still a great deal of room for improvement. This can only benefit both members of the public and gardaí subject of complaints. We believe that these changes will result in sufficient improvements in the oversight system and we hope to count on the committee's support to achieve them.

While we are present to examine the work of GSOC, we recognise that every day there are thousands of interactions between members of the public and gardaí.

Those members of the public come away having dealt with gardaí who were good, excellent and sometimes courageous. It is our view that good oversight will encourage more of that kind of interaction, will reduce complaints and, in time, will allow GSOC to deal with matters that are serious and need its attention because it will have the resources and experience to look after those types of cases.