Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 January 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Report on Crime Investigation 2014: Garda Inspectorate

2:30 pm

Mr. Robert K. Olson:

People are working on some of that. I know that the group will come under the umbrella of the Cabinet committee led by the Taoiseach. I know the establishment of the group has reached planning stage and the Department of Justice and Equality is working out the details.

We had made a similar recommendation in the fixed charge penalty inspection. I can inform the committee that we have had at least two or three briefings by this high level group who are fixing it and coming up with some really good stuff. I am pretty much assured that the same process will be happening - a point I should make here is that we are not leaving this big issue sitting around on desks.

New legislation was mentioned. There is also a tiny paragraph 1.17, that people probably did not see in the proposed Bill, that will give us the authority to go out and inspect without having to wait for the Minister's approval. I can guarantee the committee that the inspectorate will be monitoring this very closely and will be very public about the results of that. On our website we have a implementation table and will do the same thing here. We will be coming in, auditing and taking a look at things.