Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has been critical of members of Committee of Public Accounts and has said that he referred the matter to GSOC in the public interest due to the direction in which it was going. He now says that the Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality should have dealt with it. That committee and the Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions were both of the view that GSOC was the best place to investigate this because, unfortunately, committees cannot make adverse findings of fact against individuals. That was the people's decision in a referendum. We felt that the only independent place to have a proper full investigation with the proper expertise was GSOC. Unfortunately, both committees were unsuccessful because GSOC said it could not investigate it because it came from a serving member of An Garda Síochána. That is for the Dáil record.

Over the past year, we have all have been dealing with the lack of co-operation on the part of senior members of An Garda Síochána regarding GSOC. That has been heavily criticised but is now moving in the right direction. There are proper guidelines with regard to the penalty points issue so the public can look at this debacle and say that things are improving. However, on the back of all this, we need fundamental change in terms of the powers of the Garda Ombudsman and the independence of An Garda Síochána. It is really important that we send out the message that the issues around penalty points and co-operation with GSOC do not affect the vast majority of serving members of An Garda Síochána. They have done no wrong and there is no question mark over what they do. The issues relate to senior management and some senior officers regarding penalty points. That message needs to go out. This is not a crisis for An Garda Síochána. It is a crisis for the management and structures of An Garda Síochána.

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