Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I was on my final run at trying to persuade the Minister of the need for a single ombudsman rather than a trio, who could, and in most cases probably would, decide to agree, but who in other cases would disagree leaving one stuck with a problem of minority reports from the ombudsman commission. There is consensus among those on all sides in the House, including the Minister, of the need to change the debacle that was, and still is, the Garda Complaints Board so that whatever procedure we put in place has the full confidence of the public and that it will have faith in its procedures and recommendations. One does not want a position where solicitors are recommending, as they currently do in Dublin, to clients that they withdraw their allegations or complaints about Garda brutality or misconduct because if they left them stand, they would be victimised or it would augur badly for them in the conduct of the case or future cases. That is not as it should be.

I welcomed the fact the Minister was tackling the Garda Complaints Board in this Bill. I welcome the fact he moved from his original proposal and moved again on the issue of the chair because, as I said, perhaps at the end of this I will be proven wrong in two or three years' time, and so be it. The model I and others in Opposition have been putting forward is one of a single ombudsman with no commission which is already working on this island. The Minister has not shown a similar model to his which is working effectively in the same type of context which exists on this island.

The model we outlined is that of Mrs. Nuala O'Loan, which has been spectacularly successful so far. She enjoys the confidence of the public on all sides and of all persuasions in politics on this island and she has been commended for that. The model we recommended is the one recommended by Senator Maurice Hayes. It is the model recommended by Amnesty International for adoption in all EU countries so as to tackle the EU wide problem of impunity for police misconduct and the need for an effective independent civilian oversight.

The other aspect is there is no point in having such an ombudsman unless we give it the priority, status, resources and staff to address the significant number of complaints I believe will be received in its initial years because there are so many people out there who have no confidence in the Garda Complaints Board.

I have tabled other amendments on the ombudsman being given retrospective power. We should provide for that but I doubt we will come to the amendment. Such power is necessary because the Garda Complaints Board has been so poor and people have no faith in it and did not bother to make a complaint in the first instance as they knew what the result would be.

There are many cases in my area and throughout the country. Every Deputy present will have had constituents come to their offices making serious allegations against the Garda. Some of these can be borne out by their bruises or by other witnesses to Garda brutality. Others were not allegations of brutality, but just simple allegations of the gardaí not doing their job in the proper fashion. In one case, after the death of Ms Róisín Miley, her mother raised a number of serious questions regarding the procedures of investigation used by the Garda. She did not get any satisfaction in the case from the Garda Complaints Board or from the Minister.

Other cases concern people who have died in custody or shortly thereafter. Mr. John Moloney of Crumlin died in 2003 and many serious questions were raised about how he was held in Rathfarnham Garda station. Was the proper procedure carried out? There were contradictory statements made. There was bruising. There were serious allegations, but yet the mechanism that existed did not enjoy the confidence of anybody, including the Garda Síochána, in addressing those concerns and the allegations that family made that their son was assaulted in Rathfarnham Garda station and died from the hiding he got there.

There is another case which dates back 30 years, where a member of the Defence Forces was wrongly dismissed from the Army on the basis of incorrect Garda information. For 30 years afterwards, he has been obstructed and harassed by the authorities, in particular, by gardaí, when he has tried to vindicate his good name. The Garda records were never fully corrected. There were no apologies given to him. He was forced to go to the Supreme Court on one occasion and is looking to go again to get his name cleared and to get the mark on his previously exemplary record in the Army struck out.

Many people who went through a complaints procedure, whether with the Ombudsman or the Garda Complaints Board, but particularly the latter, were forced into court because they got no satisfaction. Most of them wanted only an apology for wrongful arrest or something like that. They did not want to go to court but they were left with no other option. We are putting together something in which, it is hoped, they can have confidence. However, and this is the reason for the amendment, if there is disagreement among the three people on the commission, if they contradict each other, how can the public have confidence in the procedure? A single person can take a decision and stand over it. That would be preferable to a three-person commission whose members might disagree. I mentioned last night when speaking on the Labour Party motion that Magill and other newspapers had highlighted Garda brutality and the fact that people were forced to go to court to at least get an apology. It would be worth ensuring the ombudsman has the ability to initiate his or her own investigation and to contact those who have made allegations in the media.

I met a number of constituents last week and asked them whether they had made a complaint to the Garda Complaints Board about a particular case. They related to me a horrific story about a man in Drimnagh who has been allowed to continue a reign of crime, intimidation, brutality and drug dealing for no other reason than that he is being protected by the Garda Síochána. My constituents made a complaint to the Garda Síochána that this individual had chased a car down the road with a gun. The answer given by gardaí in Crumlin to this serious allegation against a named individual was that it was okay, he was probably coked up and would not remember what he had done in the morning. This individual has appeared before the courts in connection with various activities. Last year he was before the courts having been arrested for driving while disqualified. The judge asked him why he was driving, to which he replied that he was in fear of his life, and he was allowed to walk free from the court and is driving to this day. The man in question is Seán Buckley. The Minister can ask the gardaí at Sundrive Garda Station whether they have a file on him and whether they will take action against him, given that there has been a number of complaints against him from residents and others throughout the three years I have been dealing with cases relating to him, and that they have named individual gardaí who have dealt with him and protected him when he breached barring orders and the like.

How many other police informers are protected in this way and allowed to carry on with their crime spree and attacks on communities? The victims of those individuals have no recourse, having lost faith in the Garda Síochána. Because the Garda Síochána protects these individuals, the victims cannot go to the Garda Complaints Board. Therefore, there is a crying need for an ombudsman and I agree with the Minister that we should accelerate this Bill as quickly as possible without interfering with parliamentary procedure, and that we should have the time to debate the new amendments he has put down.

There is consensus on the model I have put forward of a singular Garda ombudsman. The Commission on Human Rights, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, the spokespersons of the parties who have spoken are all agreed on that. I could quote from various scripts I have, but in the interests of time I will not go down that road. It will suffice to refer the Minister again to the ICCL submission which states the best model of an independent complaints mechanism is that of an independent ombudsman based on the Hayes review. Professor Dermot Walsh, who did a critique of the Minister's proposals, was of the same opinion. Amnesty International made a major statement in its document, Human Rights Begin at Home, when making recommendations in the context of the Irish EU Presidency last year.

My party made a submission at the request of the Minister on policy on Garda reform before the Bill was put together. We took much of what other people had to say and added to it. At that stage we recommended an independent Garda ombudsman to investigate police misconduct. It was to be a merit-based appointment with selection on the basis of published criteria, and it was to be adequately resourced and staffed. On Committee Stage, the Minister suggested the staffing of the Ombudsman Commission would be half that which the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Ms Nuala O'Loan, enjoys, despite the fact that we have two and a half times the population of Northern Ireland and, it appears, double or treble the amount of skullduggery in the Garda in comparison to the RUC. We said it should be granted the necessary legal powers and resources to conduct independent investigations and allowed a scope of investigation that includes the special detective unit. The necessity for that is borne out if one looks at the Morris reports. It should be authorised to question witnesses, compel document disclosure and access locations at will, and granted the same legal powers as the Garda to arrest and hold criminal suspects related to its investigations. It should be empowered to determine breaches of Garda disciplinary codes and to refer evidence of criminality to the Director of Public Prosecutions. It should be empowered to resolve appropriate complaints informally with the complainant's consent. It should be empowered to resolve complaints formally by assigning penalties and remedies, including a recommendation for disciplinary action, dismissal, changes in policy or procedure or compensation to the complainant. It should be empowered to investigate systematic problems, including policies and practices, and to make general recommendations to eliminate causes of classes of complaints where determined necessary by the ombudsman. In line with that, the Garda Síochána human rights audit, which was carried out by Ionann Management Consultants in June of last year, suggested in relation to the ethnic and national origin of complainants that the ombudsman may also consider conducting thematic investigations into the handling of complaints of race and other hate crimes. The ethnic and national origins of complainants, their ages and sex should be monitored with the nature of complaints and their origin to establish if patterns or trends emerge.

Sinn Féin, in its document on Garda reform, calls for the Garda ombudsman to be:

—empowered to conduct independent investigations on matters of public interest on his or her own volition, or on the request of the Minister, without the need for a complainant. . . . [that is the point I made earlier] . . . . and this would be compulsory in the case of certain violations involving loss of life, excessive force, ill-treatment in custody, discrimination and political interference;

—Granted retrospective investigative powers;

—Required to produce an Annual Report for publication, including statistics, identified trends or patterns, analyses and recommendations;

—Provided with a mechanism for effective interaction, sharing of information, and collaborative investigation that enables the Garda Ombudsman and the Police Ombudsman for the Six Counties to work together.

That is what Sinn Féin had to say on this issue in December 2003 and early 2004. Thankfully many of those powers are contained in the Bill. My amendment No. 189 and amendment No. 180 in the name of Deputy Cuffe seek to transcribe the full Patten model into the legislation. There is consensus on the ombudsman being a singular person.

The word "ombudsman" as gaeilge, even though it appears in the parliamentary dictionary as "ombudsman" is "fear an pobal" or "bean an pobal". That translation, as used in the past, has proper meaning. It means a man of the people or a woman of the people who represents the best interests of the public. Such a person is independent and puts the best interests of the public first. I believe that task can be served best by one person rather than the trio, as suggested by the Minister, who can agree or disagree. That proposal could cause problems in the future.

See this speech in context