Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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In the Minister's first statement to the Dáil on the matter of the surveillance of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission by people, as yet unidentified, he failed to outline the fact that GSOC had launched a public interest investigation. The Minister also failed to disclose to the Dáil the reasoning behind the launching of that investigation. At the same time, the Minister dismissed any reasoning as being completely baseless innuendo. Why did the Minister do that? On the Tuesday or Wednesday - at this stage I have lost track of the days - the Minister failed to tell the Dáil that the stingray or IMSI catcher highlighted in the Verrimus report was available only to Government agencies.

Would he not agree that the only logical reason for the presence of such a device in this vicinity would be that another Government agency was involved in crime prevention or detection or that it was being used by rogue elements of one of those agencies that had an expertise or had possession of such equipment? That begs a further question. Is that type of equipment in the possession of the Revenue Commissioners, Customs and Excise, An Garda Síochána or the Defence Forces?

A further question arises about why GSOC initiated its investigation in the first place. When the Minister met the Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan, did he ask him what was the information that he possessed which gave rise to the suspicions of GSOC that its office was under electronic surveillance? When the Minister met GSOC chairman, Simon O'Brien, did Simon O'Brien highlight his concerns about conversations he had with the Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan in which the Commissioner had inadvertently revealed the details of a draft GSOC report which at that stage had not been made public and that the details revealed by the Commissioner triggered the need by GSOC to have an investigation into where that information had come from?