Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Once it is not being done entirely by former civil servants I would agree with it. Otherwise it would effectively be a case of the guards investigating the guards, or a form of peer review which would not be acceptable.

We have the Fennelly commission of investigation and we are told the Cooke review into the allegations of bugging at GSOC is imminent and may be published tomorrow. We will deal with it whenever it is published. As stated, the terms of reference flowing from the Guerin report will have to examine the ten cases which were the subject of the dossier. We must consider other cases which may be as serious or more serious but which are not in the public domain and have not had the same oxygen of publicity as some of the ten cases in the dossier. Will the terms of reference provide for cases which anybody in the House or elsewhere seeks to communicate with the Minister directly? There should be some channel whereby those cases can be considered for inclusion under the commission of investigation based on their merits. I ask the Minister to seriously take it on board.

As part of the Fennelly commission of investigation we suggested the modular form be considered as part of the terms of reference. We suggested the premature departure of the former Garda Commissioner be examined up front with a shorter timescale than the year-end reporting requirement which was placed on Fennelly. Serious thought should be given to establishing modular reporting through the terms of reference.

When we speak in the Dáil on matters such as this we must extensively thank the men and women of the Garda Síochána for the work they do because the vast majority of them go above and beyond the call of duty. Many members of the Garda have told me they were not happy about being at the centre of political discourse and I explained that it had to be so because the issues were of public interest and warranted political debate. Garda morale is an issue, which Deputy Mac Lochlainn and I, along with others, have been raising for some time. It must be addressed. The relationship between the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, and the Garda Representative Association, GRA, was broken and I expect the Minister to make every effort to repair it. It is important we have a well-motivated force and we will leave no stone unturned in trying to resurrect it. This week an off-duty garda foiled an attempted raid on a cash-in-transit delivery, in another example of how many gardaí go above and beyond the call of duty.

I welcome the commission of investigation and thank Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Mr. John Wilson. Sergeant McCabe ploughed a lonely furrow for a long time and was subjected to a campaign of bullying, innuendo, undermining and threats. Any time I have engaged with Sergeant McCabe I have found him to be a man of the utmost humility. He did what he did for the right reasons, as acknowledged in the Guerin report. One of the striking points in the Guerin report is the positive testimony some of his colleagues gave as part of the internal reports compiled over the years since he first started to make his complaints. There is testimony in those reports which we never heard before from Sergeant McCabe's colleagues who said he was a very good guy. Unfortunately, this was not what was presented to the public for a long time. That was regrettable and we must learn from it.

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