Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The thinking behind these amendments is, in part, based on what has been told us by the chairperson of GSOC, namely, that a lot of complaints come in at a very low level and her preference would be that those complaints, which are work-related complaints, be dealt with by senior officers of the garda against whom the complaint is made. The intention was to give the commission some leeway to reject complaints that appeared to be frivolous or vexatious. I appreciate the Minister's point that this has a legal connotation. I am happy if the Minister commits to look at this again on Report Stage. I think some mechanism and statutory power needs to be given to the commission to allow it deal with complaints that it believes do not merit extensive investigation. If this is not done, the commission will be bogged down in that it will have to investigate every complaint made, irrespective of how small it is and irrespective of the cost of any investigation in that regard. The investigating commission should be given the power to reject complaints which appear to be unlikely to succeed or disclose no cause of action.