Ms Josephine Feehily:

There are two problems for us. What is the office that we would we be supervising and is it the same function that we have at the minute of overseeing? Is it just that the office needs to be defined or is it more intrusive supervision? One way or another the statute will need to be clear what the office was that was different from our oversight of the organisation and on the issue of supervision versus oversight, and how we would make sure we were not conflicted. Those are our concerns but there cannot really be any difficulty with the notion of better oversight given there is acceptance for the principle of an oversight body. It is about how it fits.

The policies and procedures need to be more specific to make it clear that it was not our job. If it was our job to establish all the policies and procedures then we would be the Garda and we would not be an oversight body so there needs to be some redrafting there to carve out what is intended. There is reference to the assistant commissioner but I think it should go straight to the Commissioner. Where does occasional review fit with the inspectorate?