Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The revelations in recent days that the security systems of the GSOC communications have been breached came as a shock to everyone. That the body charged with the investigation and oversight of our policing could come under attack by unknown persons should warrant a major investigation. More shocking is the twist that the story has taken in the past 24 hours. The focus of the narrative has changed to the question of why the GSOC did not report to the Minister its concerns in respect of the security of its work, a clear case of blaming the victim to deflect from the crime. We have been treated to our Taoiseach wrongly quoting a supposed obligation on the GSOC to report to the Minister, thereby trying to cast doubt in the public mind on the issue. Again today during Leaders' Questions the Taoiseach repeated his assertion. Surely someone in his Department has read the relevant section of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 at this stage and corrected him? Section 85 of the Act clearly states that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission "may make" any other reports that it considers appropriate rather than "shall make".

Too often in this country we see the focus of serious complaints and revelations being switched around and the person or body making the complaint becoming the accused. In a functioning democracy the reaction of the leader of the State to such serious reports would be to initiate an investigation to be carried out by an independent body without delay to get to the bottom of the issue and to find out where culpability lies, if any. Yet, once again we see the reaction of those who should be charged with maintaining trust in our institutions. They go on the attack and question the integrity of the commission rather than taking the reports seriously and dealing with them. Today the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors called for the chairperson of the commission to resign, a call made without knowing the full facts of the incident. A banana republic would hardly be an appropriate description of the reactions of these institutions to these events.

Given the history of the GSOC one can only come to the conclusion that there is only one body in the State with an interest in knowing what is going on behind closed doors in the commission. Let us consider the report of the handling of informers of An Garda Síochána, the report on the difficulties of having gardaí co-operate with investigations, the penalty points controversy and the disclosing of information in respect of Deputies Wallace and Daly by gardaí to the Minister and the media. These highlight the type of State we are living in.

Given that the Garda is charged with operating as the secret service of the State there is a serious potential for the abuse of power to take place and my concern is that this is what is occurring. We have a secret service with no democratic oversight in respect of which answers to questions are denied because the actions of a secret service are actually secret.

Today, the narrative has moved on. The official view is there is nothing to report or investigate. According to the Taoiseach's comments today there has been no compromising of the GSOC database and no evidence of any information having been compromised. Therefore, the thinking goes, there is no incident. How can we believe this? There is a major crisis under way and a serious challenge to our democracy. The least we should expect is that our Government would be concerned about it. It should be clear to everyone that there is an urgent need to have this incident investigated fully and independently to restore confidence in the administration of justice. We should be assured that the commission can carry on its work in providing oversight of and accountability for the Garda.

The Garda should be at the forefront of calls for an investigation to clear itself of any suspicion rather than attacking the commission. Once again we see gardaí placing loyalty to the force above the public interest. Any investigation would have to examine who has the means and the motive to covertly spy on the GSOC, and perhaps that is what they are afraid of finding out.

I call on the Minister and the Government to initiate a comprehensive independent investigation into whether the ombudsman's office was bugged. Only an external investigation can achieve that and restore all our trust.

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