Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will return to an issue arising from some of the questions I and other members asked the Garda Commissioner this morning. The Commissioner categorised what happened between Mr. Barrett and Mr. Culhane as an interpersonal and issue and referred the matter to Mr. Dunne, the CAO. Given that Mr. Barrett was head of human resources, I would expect he would understand if something was an interpersonal issue. It would be part of the discipline and part of the reason he was recruited into his role would have been that he had considerable experience.

I would like to return to the governance architecture. This is not about a team. The internal audit, audit committee and head of finance are not a team. Tensions are expected in this architecture which is, or should be, designed with tensions, albeit not to the extent that people beat each other up or anything. It is not an interpersonal matter and should not be categorised as such, given Mr. Barrett's background and given that this friction is intended. One can introduce all the recommendations one likes but if this matter is viewed as people having a working relationship with one other that does not work well, I have serious concerns about whether this architecture will provide the protection to which the Garda Commissioner repeatedly refers. She keeps referring to checks and balances. What is it about these checks and balances that are different and will not be able to overcome a difficulty that is described as interpersonal?