Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 December 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Changing Policing in Ireland Report: Garda Inspectorate

9:30 am

Mr. Robert K. Olson:

As we pointed out in the report, the statute is a little vague and a lot can be read into it. At the time, more than 96 superintendents were supposed to implement the policy but it was a very vague policy and there were no guidelines. All this information is contained in the report. We said it would have to be centralised so that someone who is trained and knows the law and so forth would make the decision. This should have taken care of the matter but the Minister went forward and appointed Mr. Justice Deery to audit and oversee the system. I am looking forward to that process. I would like to meet the judge and we will help him any way we can. In the report, we said we would come back and see how it is working out and that will be in our work plan for next year. We will just have to see. I agree the statute provides it must be an emergency but we will have to see what that means in practice.