Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I am sorry. "Great" is probably too strong a word. What the Minister actually said was that he supported the recommendations of the commission on the new structure, which has been asserted, correctly in my opinion, to be a dilution of the external oversight we had begun to move towards implementing and a serious step backwards. In the context of all of the experts in this area, including Dermot Walsh and others in that vein, who look at serious reform of policing being of a different view, that concerns me. It gets to the heart of it.

Why does the Minister not think the adequate beefing up of the Policing Authority to make it genuinely accountable is sufficient? He thinks the report is fine but there is nothing new around the GSOC recommendations. There is nothing new in a lot of the report, which is not a criticism of it. It is a pulling together of ideas which have been out there for a very long time. It pulls together and includes many recommendations our committee put forward. The report also pulls together recommendations GSOC made to improve its role and make it a proper, fit-for-purpose complaints structure. The only thing changing here is the name. Why has the Minister not enacted legislation then? What are his plans and what is he waiting for before he enacts what everybody recommends, including this body the Minister thinks is fine? Why has that legislation not been tabled before us? We should not have to wait for it. I see no merit in that. We can tease it out in the Chamber if legislation comes forward.