Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 21 March 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

Garda Oversight and Accountability: Policing Authority

9:00 am

Ms Josephine Feehily:

I accept that is their belief, but from where we are sitting, we were embedded in great detail in this work right through last year. We were challenging everything. We accepted nothing. In fact, one of the things that struck me about their evidence to the committee was that they were more reassured in September than we were. We were not reassured in September. Ms West said she was reassured in September. They also indicated that they had no reason to lack confidence in the new group. We are not at that stage yet, until we meet it and see its product. In some ways, we have been less reassured than some of the evidence that they gave the committee. While I accept that it is their belief that they had information we did not have, I can only assure this committee and Deputy O'Callaghan that we did have it.