Mr. Hugh Hume:

I will give an example. A Garda superintendent may contact us and say he or she wants to bring something to our attention, for example, some very bad behaviour where a prisoner has been assaulted by a member of An Garda Síochána. The prisoner has not made a complaint and the prisoner has not suffered death or serious harm. At that moment, we would have no investigation, but under section 102(4) there may be CCTV from the station or there may be another Garda who would make a statement. We could then open that investigation without a complaint and say it is clearly wrong where a member of An Garda Síochána assaults somebody. That is a very generic example for the Deputy. When it comes to our attention, either from the Garda, from social media or from some other format, where we see clear and blatant wrongdoing but there is no complaint from a member of the public and there is no death or serious harm, then we would use the section 102(4) prerogative to open an investigation.