Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is very good, but the Commissioner has answered none of the questions I asked. She has said she is not making excuses but she then delivered a complete set of excuses as to why she did not do something.

I asked how many people were deployed to the audit. She does not know. That is incredible. There are two aspects of this that are very important. First, the Garda conducted the initial audit in the southern region. Whatever about the time lag between the Garda management deciding to change processes afterwards, the initial audit was conducted in the southern region and something obviously registered with the Garda that there was a problem, regardless of how many people were not there to make decisions. Did the Commissioner not think that problem was so serious that she should inform the Policing Authority properly? I put it to the Commissioner that not only did she not think that the problem was serious enough at that stage to inform the Policing Authority, but that in some of the answers which she and her colleagues gave to the Policing Authority, they went out of their way not to make it obvious that they were dealing with something very serious. The Commissioner knew it was serious enough that processes were going to have to be changed. She knew it was serious enough that she would have to trigger a national audit, even if she took forever to do it, but the knew it was serious enough. She did not think it was serious enough to go out of her way to forthrightly bring it to the attention of the Policing Authority, or to anyone else, to say there was a belief there was a very serious problem. Maybe more was done in private in which case the Commissioner might tell us, but in public answers to the Policing Authority a minimum amount of information was given.

The reason I asked the Commissioners to apologise for how she has conducted the investigation is that Garda Síochána management has a method of answering questions which involves not supplying information unless we absolutely get to the heart of it. It deeply upsets me and is unacceptable in our time. Again, I ask, how many people were involved in the audit? Does she have any indication as to whether it was one person writing letters? Does she have any indication as to whether a team was established? Does she have any indication as to whether, if that team was established, there were, say, ten people on it or 15? She is in here and says that it is not completed. How many people are currently working on the audit? What level of priority is given to it?