Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Commissioner will, I am sure, have noticed from many of the contributions that the committee is a little frustrated by the conflicting evidence and accounts being given. Notwithstanding the fact that the system and practices at Templemore college date back decades, we have not had from An Garda Síochána collectively a coherent or credible account or response in terms of what happened. I am not referring in the first instance to how all of these practices became established, convoluted and so on. Everyone accepts the interim audit report and all of the criticisms therein, some of them very serious, including in regard to the Commissioner.

We have not managed to unravel what was happening within senior management in An Garda Síochána. Mr. McGee, a colleague of Ms O'Sullivan, was before the committee last week and I explored with him an email he had sent to Mr. Barrett. In the email he addresses his report of 2008 and says the best thing is to deal with the matter quietly. The best thing is to keep it out of the Committee of Public Accounts and away from the Comptroller and Auditor General. I asked him if this was his preferred way of dealing with things, if it was his idea and did the idea of keeping things quiet originate with him. I did not get an answer to that. I think he felt very much put on the spot. I would not be persuaded that Mr. McGee, given his level within the organisation, came up with this strategy. He is a very competent person, I have no doubt, but he is not, in relative terms, a very senior person. I think the evidence reflects that it was the approach taken.

I will put the next question to the Commissioner because I really want to know what was happening here. She inherited this situation. I do not think anybody disputes that even though Ms O'Sullivan is a long-serving officer. As Commissioner she inherited this. What I cannot understand is the lack of decisive action on her part. What I am trying to understand is whether she simply fell into the same mindset as her colleagues, perhaps because she has such long service, I do not know, and whether she was persuaded by colleagues to go along with this "softly, softly, say nothing, sort it out and regularise matters" approach. I want Ms O'Sullivan to help me to understand that. I just want to make clear it is the reason I raise the issue of gender. I am very struck that Ms O'Sullivan is a trailblazer in many respects. She is the first woman in this job, in the most senior position. She is in charge. If there was a dynamic around that, I would like to know whether that happened and whether it was a factor. If it is not a factor, she should simply tell us it was not a factor and not an issue and that is fine. Ms O'Sullivan needs to give us an explanation beyond the well-trodden ground of "I heard about this in July and I did this". She has had ample questioning from colleagues which demonstrates that a letter Ms O'Sullivan wrote or signed off on to the Comptroller and Auditor General was misleading. The Comptroller and Auditor General has said he believes in his position, in the constitutional office he holds, that he did not get the full information that would have enabled him to carry out his function. I hope I am not misrepresenting the position. We have not had an adequate or convincing explanation from Ms O'Sullivan as the leader and person in charge as to why those things happened. I want to give Ms O'Sullivan an opportunity to explain that.