Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our guests for their contributions. I have a number of questions, many of which follow on from those of other members. To take up on what Deputy Higgins asked, it would be helpful, if we are making representations as a committee to ensure the ombudsman’s office can be resourced more appropriately, to get some kind of statistical analysis of approximately how many more cases could be processed given an additional five, ten or 20 inspectors or whatever the case may be. Judging by our guests' comments, that will be difficult because every case is different, but perhaps we could have some kind of a rough guide as to how many inspectors will be required to undertake a given volume of work, which might help us in our representations.

Given the level of work GSOC has carried out over recent years, we are all becoming more familiar with it as the years go by. Will our guests outline the major gaps identified in Ireland's policing accountability? Where are the major gaps we need to focus on? It is a broad question.

To follow on from Deputy Buckley's line of questioning, how many protected disclosures have been made per annum over recent years? Were any of those protected disclosures made within GSOC? I do not think there was any last year, but our guests might indicate how many protected disclosures GSOC has dealt with internally over the preceding years.

The Irish Examinerreported a couple of weeks ago that a number of disclosures made to GSOC did not warrant further investigation, presumably for a variety of reasons. The article stated a number of them had been sent to a board of inquiry. How is that board constituted and who sits on it? Is it internal within GSOC or is there some kind of external process with which we might not be familiar?