Mr. Justice Rory MacCabe:

I thank the Acting Chairman. We submitted this opening statement a couple of days ago. I am sure the committee members had an opportunity to look at it. It would be helpful to put it on the record for the people who will be watching.

I thank the committee for inviting us here today. We had a very fruitful engagement last year. I am joined here today by Mr. Hume, my fellow commissioner, Mr. Whelan, our director of operations, and Ms Woods, our deputy director of administration. We are appearing before the committee having just recently submitted our 2022 annual report to the Minister. That report will shortly be laid before the Houses. While the formal focus of today’s meeting is our annual report of 2021, which we published last summer, we have also included some detail from our 2022 report in the supplementary briefing material provided. We thought it would be a good idea to relate some of this fresher information to the committee, not least because, as members are aware, this time next year GSOC will no longer exist. Indeed, it is in the context of the significant institutional reforms facing GSOC that we meet with the committee today.

Since our last meeting the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill has been published and has recently completed Committee Stage in the Dáil. We expect the Bill to be enacted in the coming months, and its core provisions – including the replacement of GSOC with a new office of the police ombudsman – are expected to be commenced early in 2024. It will be a major change in policing oversight, and this commission and our executive team have been given a specific objective of transitioning GSOC to the new office of the police ombudsman. We look forward today to speaking to the committee about this task, which is well under way at present.

GSOC was established in 2007 under the Garda Síochána Act 2005. Our primary job is to independently investigate complaints from the public concerning the conduct of members of An Garda Síochána. We also conduct investigations into matters referred to us by An Garda Síochána, the Minister for Justice and the Policing Authority, as well as matters we judge to be in the public interest to investigate. In addition, we are one of the designated bodies to which members of An Garda Síochána can make protected disclosures. Our headquarters are located in Dublin. We have regional offices in Cork and Longford. We operate in 26 counties, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The work is challenging and complex, and results depend on our staff, whose skill and dedication deserve the highest respect and recognition.

We receive a significant volume of complaints from members of the public, usually in the region of 2,000 per annum. In 2022, for example, we received a total of 1,826 complaints containing 2,234 separate allegations. Complaints range from low-level issues to matters of the utmost seriousness. In 2022, the top three circumstances underpinning complaints were matters arising during arrest, poor customer service or complaints relating to the conduct of investigations.

The top three allegations arising from complaints in 2022 were: neglect of duty, which amounted to 33%; non-fatal offences such as assault at 21%; and abuse of authority at 20%. Admissibility rates for complaints range between 50% and 60%. Many complaints and allegations, while made in good faith, arise from circumstances that come hand in hand with gardaí carrying out their duties. Others clearly relate to circumstances where members have breached professional standards or the law. It is our job to sort through these and to contribute to a more accountable policing infrastructure in Ireland. Where we identify systemic issues in our investigative work, we make recommendations to An Garda Síochána, to advise it as to the need to review policing policy and practice. We have recently decided to publish these recommendations in full on a periodic basis, including any relevant responses from An Garda Síochána. Since 2018, we have also operated a local intervention initiative. This can facilitate the speedy resolution of some complaints without the need for formal investigation and this innovation that has been extremely successful over the past few years with the addition of considerable potential value in allocation of scarce resources where they are most needed.

It is also important to be clear about where our role ends. We do not prosecute gardaí. We do not suspend or discipline them. If our investigations lead us to conclude that an offence may have been committed, we are obliged to send a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP. It is then for the DPP, as the State’s independent prosecuting authority, to decide whether a prosecution is warranted. If our conclusion is that misconduct has occurred, we pass the file to the Garda Commissioner, whose responsibility it is to consider whether a disciplinary sanction should apply.

By their very nature, some investigations are straightforward and some are not. Some can be dealt with quickly and some require a more significant commitment in terms of staff, resources and time. The duration of investigations can cause frustration. This is understandable. However, we, as with all investigative agencies, are duty-bound by the principle of due process and the need to respect human rights principles. We cannot and will not prioritise speed at the expense of rigour in completing our investigations. GSOC has no interest in keeping any investigation open any longer than is strictly necessary.

Last year, I said that organisational transition was the commission’s primary strategic focus in the context of the drafting and eventual publication and passage of the Bill currently making its way through the Oireachtas. We and our colleagues across GSOC’s executive staff have worked with the Department of Justice on the Bill. In the course of that process, we gave reasoned observations on gaps and many practical issues of concern we identified in the draft legislation. The Bill represents a significant step forward in addressing a clearly defined and long-signalled gap in Ireland’s policing accountability infrastructure. That said, it is our view that in a number of significant ways the legislation falls short of the vision of independent civilian oversight laid out by the Commission on the Future of Policing in 2018. The Bill maintains an undue degree of ministerial involvement in the governance and operations of the new police ombudsman. The Bill curtails the new agency’s powers in crucial areas, including search powers and fails to require An Garda Síochána to cooperate fully and promptly with the agency’s investigations. As the Bill continues its passage through the Oireachtas in the coming weeks and months, we will continue to articulate these concerns.

In parallel to our engagement on the legislation, GSOC is involved in cross-agency and cross-departmental implementation programmes. These aim to put all the practical governance and inter-agency systems in place to ensure that the new office of the police ombudsman will be ready to fulfil its new statutory remit. This involves sustained engagement by GSOC administrative and operational staff with counterparts in the Department of Justice, An Garda Síochána and in the National Shared Services Office. This work is ongoing. A core aspect of this has been to prepare our institutional and governance structures for our relaunch as an agency with, for the first time: its own independent Oireachtas Vote; a CEO who will be the Accounting Officer answerable directly to these Houses instead of the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, who is the current Accounting Officer; and an ombudsman and deputy ombudsman replacing the current three-person commission. Work on a new and multifunctional case management system that is fundamental to the ability of the new office of the police ombudsman to fulfil its enhanced mandate, is also a priority in our organisational transition. It is a complex project for which we are drawing on a well of external expertise and guidance. Once complete, it will equip the new office of the police ombudsman to enhance performance management, track the progress and timeliness of investigations and crucially, to produce robust data on trends and patterns on which we can base research.

Following some welcome increases in our staffing and resourcing in recent years, our current staff complement as of today is approximately 170. Our most recent budget allocation in 2023 was €16.67 million. Unfortunately, this remains some way off the minimum necessary to meet our current needs and does not come close to meeting the requirements that the expanded statutory functions proposed in the new legislation will require. GSOC has repeatedly and publicly flagged that in order for the new office of the police ombudsman to succeed, significant additional support in the shape of resources and expertise will be needed.

In order to better identify the new ombudsman’s needs, we commissioned an external organisational review of GSOC. This has recently been completed and will assist us and the Department of Justice in making a business case to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. It will also provide us with a prism through which we can view existing strengths and weaknesses in our present operation. It was placed on our website in the past few days. The review demonstrates what a transformed and expanded office of the police ombudsman will require in terms of staffing, resourcing and expertise. Our aim is to paint a clear picture of what will be necessary to ensure that our successors, the new police ombudsman, deputy police ombudsman and chief executive officer, can fulfil their new remit. In broad terms, a minimum of a doubling of our current staff complement, including a considerable increase in our complement of investigative staff, will be required. We are not talking about a Rolls Royce, but a vehicle that can carry all the complement needed to investigate all the complaints we receive from start to finish, professionally, fairly, rigorously and in a timely fashion.

Recruiting, training and embedding such a large number of staff will also be a significant challenge for the new organisation. To that extent, I welcome the consideration An Garda Síochána is giving by facilitating our investigators in their training system. It is a sophisticated, comprehensive training system that is fully funded by the State. It is situated in Templemore. Whether the new office of the police ombudsman will succeed will depend on the combination of many different ingredients. The core of these, in the shape of a motivated, competent and dedicated staff, is already present. More responsibilities will, however, require more resources. Effective investigation in the digital age has become a fast-moving and increasingly complex undertaking. Failure to prepare for this will inevitably be preparation for failure. Keeping ahead of this is the aim, but keeping pace alone will take considerable effort. Recognising these immutable facts when it comes to resourcing will determine whether the aims and objectives of the new legislative regime will be met. It is our clear aim as a commission and executive staff to do everything we can to ensure that the new office of the police ombudsman is equipped to provide the service the public expects. That is efficient, effective, human-rights-based policing oversight that promotes accountability and the enhancement of trust in policing in Ireland.

I will conclude my opening remarks there. I look forward to the discussion to come. Last year, I invited the committee to consider coming to visit us at our Dublin headquarters and taking the opportunity to meet our staff. I repeat that invitation today for the committee to meet the staff, listen to them and see the work they do. It is my belief members will be impressed. I thank them again for affording us the opportunity to discuss our work today.