Ms Josephine Feehily:

That is a separate matter. That is not what I said. If that is the impression I conveyed, I apologise and I will try to be clearer. What I intended to convey in my opening remarks was that I found their testimony in respect of how they were treated in their workplace to be deplorable and that it had echoes for me in other matters with which the Policing Authority was dealing. That is their employment matter. My issue about conflict is entirely different. We have no business being involved in the employment matter. My issue about conflict is that we are a regulator, an overseer. In order to be able to do our jobs properly, we have to have good order about how we engage with the body we oversee. We have established that order through the liaison office. We operate on the basis of transparency in all our engagements with the Garda. From that point of view, when we were asked by a person if they could come to a meeting with the authority, we had no trouble with it. The specific response was that we had no difficulty with their attendance but that it was a matter for the Garda as to who attended. The difficulty for an oversight body in terms of conflicts is that if we become involved in resolving a professional conflict, then we ourselves become conflicted. I am talking about a professional conflict rather than an employment matter. We try to provide structures, we are transparent in our engagement and we invite the Commissioner to meetings. We also insist that people who attend are authorised to commit the organisation. The only way to oversee performance is to deal with people who are authorised to speak.