Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Commissioner and thank her for her contribution thus far. She is in a position of enormous responsibility and I am sure she can appreciate the difficulties that members of the public have with the breadth of issues that have arisen.

If people cannot have faith in the Garda Síochána to be above reproach, what faith do they have? The Commissioner is here to try to answer some of those questions for the committee. In terms of Ms O'Sullivan's opening statement, Deputy Cullinane mentioned her actions in July 2015. I note that she took over as Commissioner in March 2014, as she just said, on an interim basis until November 2014, when she was appointed on a permanent basis. I am interested in the time between November 2014 and July 2015 because in her earlier evidence she mentioned mechanisms and structures and putting those in place. The McGee report was completed in 2008. Ms O'Sullivan must therefore have been aware for a significant period of time of some of the issues within the wider Garda Síochána. What actions did she take when she became Commissioner?