Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms West and Ms Galligan. Everything connected with this is of enormous public interest, whether it relates to the seriousness of the crime, the ability of the public to have full faith in reporting such serious crime and how this has been managed. Another is how it has been presented by An Garda Síochána, which is something about which I continue to be concerned. I want to pay particular tribute to our witnesses, as clearly enormous pressure and stress was placed on them and I am grateful to them for coming before the committee.

Ms West's statement referred to a phone call on 12 May. At this committee's last meeting which discussed this issue with Garda management, there was much discussion about the April meeting of the Policing Authority. That is significant because it was the first time that this was properly discussed in a public forum. On that occasion the impression was falsely given that An Garda Síochána as a whole was satisfied with the report, as was the review group. Ms West has since put on the record that that was not the case, as did Dr. Singh some weeks ago. However, the explanation given to the committee at that meeting three weeks ago was very much to the effect that it was something of an oversight. In this regard, Mr. Michael Finn remarked:

I accept that concerns were raised about this. In the report presented to the Policing Authority in April somebody had reviewed the investigations and clarified that an investigation had been carried out in each of the 41 incidents. The error, however, was made in that we did not sit down with the analysts and raise or surface the issue of whether the investigations had all been properly classified.

To a great extent it was presented as an error or oversight. In the context of this phone call, it is quite clear that the concerns which Ms West and Ms Galligan raised in their report had been discussed among senior garda personnel at a meeting on 13 April, prior to that meeting. In that context, do the witnesses think it is credible that it was simply an oversight that they themselves were not consulted prior to the report being presented to the policing authority?