Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 February 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Garda Homicide Statistics: Discussion

10:30 am

Mr. Michael Finn:

A group was set up when the analysts alerted us to 41 cases which needed to be examined. Initially, that examination was done in the context of the classification issue. As part of that process, the group spoke to the district officers concerned. They raised the query around classification and inquired about the investigation file. That liaison took place with the investigating members of various districts to see what happened to those particular investigations. Following that interaction, the team that was looking at the examination was able to confirm that each of those 41 cases had been investigated. However, the analysts did have some concerns about the way they were classified, because the classifications of the cases on PULSE did not tally with what Dr. Singh and his people were finding at the Office of the State Pathologist. This was where the synchronisation of the two had to take place.