Mr. Seamus Nolan:

Comments were made about gardaí investigating gardaí. Our general secretary, Superintendent Comyns, mentioned in his opening statement that we are charged with conducting those investigations.

That is not by choice. We are doing it primarily on behalf of GSOC. We would welcome if GSOC took over those investigations and that we would not be involved in them. We are not seeking to self-govern. We accept the regulations. We accept the various oversight bodies that have provided fairness and transparency.

A point regarding notification was made numerous times. Our comment on that is that it must be proportionate. There are some things we should be notified about and some things we should not be but it should not be a blanket cover-all, as it were, where nobody is notified about anything.

We welcome the expansion of GSOC but not its powers. We investigate on its behalf quite well already with the powers we have and we have quite a high success rate in prosecuting wrongdoing in our own organisation. That is the point we would make.