Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions

Security and Surveillance Issues: Minister for Justice and Equality

6:15 pm

Photo of John HalliganJohn Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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It is just one question, but I want to clear an inaccuracy. I am not here to defend or attack GSOC, the Garda or the Minister, who is well capable of defending himself. GSOC stated, only last year, that it finds the failure by the Garda to release information unacceptable. It also stated that its inquiries are regularly frustrated by the refusal by officers to hand over documents. On one occasion, GSOC was forced to wait 542 days, so it does not have a good relationship with the Garda Commissioner.

Why has the Minister continued to imply that GSOC has an express obligation in law to report these concerns to him? He has implied that section 80(5) and section 103 place that express obligation on GSOC, when it does not.

Verrimus has stated, in a reference to wholly inaccurate reporting, that a mobile telephone cannot create a 3G base station and that it is impossible that operated telephones were the source of the leaks. Verrimus also stated that a Wi-Fi device that sits on a secure, internal WLAN could not communicate with any other device outside its own secure network. Verrimus released that statement yesterday and today, and further stated that it stands over everything that it has said. If Verrimus is stating that the likelihood of the office not being bugged is rated at "close to nil", surely that warrants a criminal investigation.