Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 12 December 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Photo of Mick WallaceMick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not have many questions. We teased out many of the issues with Kathleen O'Toole. The Minister stated our existing oversight arrangements are confused and lack clarity. He stated the commission also views the lack of distinction between the responsibility of An Garda Síochána for its own management and governance on the one hand and the roles of some of the oversight bodies on the other as problematic. The Minister probably noticed that Mr. Justice Charleton went out of his way to emphasise that creating new structures will not fix anything and that the culture was more of a problem than the structures. It is as if we are trying to reinvent the wheel.

The Minister is right that we have highlighted issues with GSOC, the Policing Authority and the Garda Inspectorate. We do not think it is a good idea to get rid of any of them. We think they need to be strengthened. There was some overlap in responsibility but it is something that can be cleared up. It can be fixed. We have been recommending for a long time that the Garda Inspectorate should be able to follow up on its recommendations and see where they are going. The Garda Inspectorate did some great work and produced some powerful reports that were the blueprint of where we should be going with policing. It was obviously a problem that the inspectorate could not follow up on what was happening to its recommendations. It also did not have the power of inspection, which we recommended. They are areas where the Garda Inspectorate could have been strengthened. The Policing Authority was finding its feet. It seemed to be getting better all the time with a bit of experience. We also felt it did not have enough powers but it did well given the powers it had. It would be better to give it the extra powers it needs to make it even more effective. We have said for a long time that GSOC was designed to fail. It is not funded properly. The structure is wrong. There are too many gardaí inspecting each other, but it is fixable if one had the appetite to fix it.

We find it strange the Government is moving away from that. Instead of strengthening and improving the three organisations, its move away is watering down external oversight.

In his opening statement, the Minister made the point that "Unlike the current situation, [the new body, the policing and community safety oversight commission] would concentrate solely on exercising independent external oversight and would not undertake executive functions." We thought the fact the Policing Authority was engaged in executive functions was a positive. As Deputy O'Callaghan pointed out, we thought that giving it a role in the appointments process was a positive move. I find it strange that the Minister is rowing back on that now. When we put these points to Kathleen O'Toole when she appeared before the committee, she did not really make a good case against them.

My main point is that we do not have to reinvent the wheel. We believe this is a watering down of external oversight. Did the gardaí not like that oversight by the Policing Authority? Was it bothering them? I do not want to knock the report too much because there are many good proposals in it, and many recommendations that were discussed in recent years are included in it. There are plenty of positives in it but the oversight issue in particular would be an area of concern from our point of view.

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