Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not want the answers now. They may be supplied in writing, if that is okay, because I want the details by year for the past five years.

What was the number of internal investigations based on cases that were taken? How many were there in each of the past five years, and what was the outcome in each case? I am referring to where GSOC felt the need to investigate somebody internally as a result of their activities on files or otherwise.

Third, considerable time has been spent on cases in Limerick. For each of the past five years, namely 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019, I want the total number of GSOC man-hours spent on cases from Limerick alone. I want the information because I want to quantify how many hours were devoted to each case and the cost to the Exchequer.

Were PSNI officers brought down to do interview training techniques with GSOC staff? If so, why was it necessary? The witnesses might reply to that in writing.

On the next issue, I want to put on the record the issue around John Barrett and how he has been treated has been bad, although not necessarily all to do with GSOC. However, the investigation that GSOC carried out in Templemore, which Deputy Murphy referred to, was just a tick-the-box exercise. This man spent days in this room and he was interviewed by GSOC for one hour. That is incomprehensible. It is a stain on GSOC because we would not have been investigating that issue only for the man. At one hour, it was nothing other than a tick-the-box exercise. I ask all three of the commissioners to reflect on that because that does not stand up to any form of scrutiny.

I want to get GSOC's view on the following hypothetical situation. I want to know what is the bar or threshold for launching a public interest investigation. Hypothetically, a judge in a case finds that gardaí in pursuant of a case being taken by GSOC did not behave in the appropriate manner, that is, warrants were not done properly or other information was not provided appropriately, etc. I ask Mr. Justice MacCabe what is the threshold for a public interest investigation by GSOC and would that meet the threshold whereby a judge says that such behaviour by the Garda was not correct, was not appropriate, etc.?