David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Before we proceed, and before we have more meetings and invite in more witnesses, my view is we need to be very clear as a committee about what it is we are doing. A committee established by the Commissioner is examining a number of issues. Internal audit is still doing its work; what we have received is an interim report and it must conclude its work. Mr. Kelly said this will not be done by July and that it will take some more time, but it is in process. The Comptroller and Auditor General will do his work on the appropriation accounts. It is not an actual examination, although that might come following whatever comes from his examination of these issues for the appropriation accounts.

It is very clear there was a breakdown in process, policies and procedures. We have to get under the bonnet of all of this. We have contradictory evidence. We received a huge amount of information from Mr. Barrett, which is very helpful. It is documented and contemporaneous. We do not have the same level of information, by the way, from the Garda Commissioner.

I would like to see us putting some structure to our work. First of all, we need to get all of the information we have sought. We have the incomplete audit report from 2006, which has been referenced, the 2008 report that was ignored pretty much and a 2010 report. There are documents that were over and back between the director of financial services and the Commissioner. There are documents the chief administrative officer had. There was information that should have been given to board meetings which was not given. We need minutes of those board meetings. There is a list of documentation and a range of documents we need first. Then we need to look at who we need to bring in and who are the key witnesses. There are people who were not in the room last time, for example, the chief administrative officer who, in my view, has questions to answer. Even if retired, that person needs to be in the room.

I do not want to go into all of Mr. Barrett's points, but there is a key statement in his documentation which goes to the heart of all of this. He stated:

More worryingly it appears that a coordinated effort was made to ensure that Mr Niall Kelly, Head of Internal Audit, was actively delayed, dissuaded, or precluded from becoming involved. Despite Mr Kelly's best efforts to get a copy of the 2007 report, he was denied access to it by senior Garda management. This process of exclusion essentially closed down any prospect of the matters going beyond the walls of Garda HQ and becoming a matter visible to your committee [as in the internal audit committee], the C&AG, the Public Accounts Committee and thereby into the public domain.

It is quite clear that information was withheld from the Comptroller and Auditor General's office, this committee, the Department and Garda internal audit. These are allegations that are being made and that we need to examine. They are more than allegations as there are also statements made by internal audit. The head of internal audit said himself he was frustrated he did not get the information he sought. We need to put structure to it. I say, based on my reading of it, that all of this screams cover-up and collusion. We as a committee need to take it seriously because it goes to the heart of the culture in An Garda Síochána.

My recommendation to the committee is when we come back the next time we have a report which looks at structure, we get as much information as possible and we have a list of potential witnesses, then we decide when we do it and for how long we do it, and then we look at the internal controls in place within An Garda Síochána and the failures. Essentially our job is to do all of this. I propose this as a way to advance this. What we do not want to have is a scattergun approach, whereby we end up bringing in witnesses who are in and out with a slap on the wrist and that is it. I do not think that would be useful for us. I want a Committee of Public Accounts report at the end of this.