Ms Antoinette Cunningham:

Of course we recognise independence is important in investigations of An Garda. Public confidence has to be held in the highest regard and the public must have confidence in the systems of investigation, and independence is the key to that. However, those systems must be transparent for the members who are under investigation. Therefore, a balance needs to be reached.

In 2020, GSOC had a budget in excess of €11 million, 127 staff members and 1,900 complaints were open. You have to ask where the inefficiency is. Is it a confidence issue on GSOC's behalf if it has that sort of budget, that number of staff, and that number of complaints? What is ironic about this is that head 181 proposes that An Garda Síochána would provide training to GSOC which would then carries out the investigations into An Garda Síochána. Where is the external expertise in hiring people into GSOC, so that they come in suitably trained in investigative process? Head 181 states that as soon as practicable after the commencement of the head, the Garda Commissioner and Garda Ombudsman would get together and arrange suitable training to be provided to GSOC by An Garda Síochána to investigate An Garda Síochána. I do not know if any of the committee members see an issue with that, but it certainly seems a little ironic to us.

Public accountability and public transparency are very important. We would say there is no problem with independent investigation. GSOC's annual report of last year recommended a scheme, called the local intervention scheme, in which An Garda Síochána would deal with low level matters such as discourtesy. GSOC stated it was a system that was in place, that it worked very efficiently, and it stopped GSOC resources being tied up in very minor incidents of complaint that could be investigated internally. GSOC gave recognition and merit to that scheme. I again go back to what balance can be achieved if we are to make the most efficient system for everybody involved.