James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and welcome everybody. The particular of facet of interest for me with GSOC rotates around the increase in the number of disciplinary investigations into members of An Garda Síochána. There are two facets to this and some of this has been discussed this morning. The first element is that some of these are handled by An Garda Síochána internally. According to those figures, the number of non-supervised cases by GSOC rose to 256 in 2017 and then hover around that figure. It dropped to 199 and then 250 in 2020. What is of concern is that a huge number of complaints is going in. There are 14,000 members of An Garda Síochána currently, which has dropped from 14,750. Of that figure, approximately 11,500 are on the beat in uniform and 2,400 are detectives. However, in 2020, as we know from our briefings, the number of complaints to GSOC stood at 1,826. That gives an indication there is a huge amount of dissatisfaction among certain sectors of society. We have the breakdown of those areas of complaint. Some 27% of them relate to roads policing arrests and 2% relate to public order but we are in this context where there is a retention crisis in An Garda Síochána. A total of 62 extensions of service have been granted to members. The numbers have dropped back under 14,000, unfortunately, from a height of 14,750. At the same time, there is a correlation with the fact the investigations into gardaí through GSOC have trebled in the past five years. With that, the investigation period has gone from 115 days in 2017 up to 366 in 2022.

Issues around vacancies have been pointed out as potential causes. In the case of a member of the force who is under investigation, as a public representative it is utterly unacceptable that this should be allowed to occur because of the stress it creates for people.

I regularly speak to members of An Garda Síochána as a Deputy for Cork East. We meet them at the gates of Leinster House every morning. There is huge fear of them doing the wrong thing and what the consequences may be. Some may point to the current Commissioner, but this is just as bad of an issue in terms of what has been brought to my attention by gardaí regarding the fear they have of doing their job. They should be able to walk the streets without fear or favour and do their job, which is protecting us from danger and enforcing the law.

There are highly concerning figures around the jump in the investigation period. Obviously, there is wrong and right and the process of an investigation is to identify that. The period of time involved is utterly unacceptable. The witnesses are aware this is an issue for the Garda and public. What is being done to address it? The statistics show things are going very rapidly in one direction and that is of huge concern.