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

I congratulate the Minister on her appointment. I will recount all the mistakes made by the Government so all of us can reflect on the lessons that must be learned. As Sinn Féin spokesperson on justice I will give the Minister a fair wind. Although I am happy with the announcements she has made so far in response to some of these crises, I will detail, with the Minister present, what has gone wrong.

The Morris tribunal in my home county, Donegal, revealed an appalling abuse of power by the Garda Síochána at every level throughout the county that shocked people throughout the State. It was not isolated and is not unique to Ireland but happens in police forces throughout the world. It was a challenge for us to change the culture and systems that allowed those abuses to happen. It led to the Garda Síochána Act 2005, which established the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, the Garda Inspectorate and a codified system, and made other welcome changes. However, from the beginning my party said it did not go far enough.

We strongly felt the powers of GSOC were insufficient in that the Garda Commissioner was not accountable to it and it could not initiate investigations. We also felt it did not have enough resources and the system of lease out, as it is known, whereby gardaí investigated gardaí was poor practice, and we criticised it repeatedly. We also talked about an independent policing authority. We saw the new beginning in policing in the North. While I am not comparing the old RUC with An Garda Síochána, there are models there from which we could learn and benefit. Some of the findings of the Patten commission were there to be learned from. We, like others, said there needed to be an independent policing authority in the State.

From the beginning of the Government's term there was a lack of emphasis on the challenges. For example, the programme for Government did not mention an independent policing authority. When various Opposition Deputies repeatedly called for it, such as Deputy Wallace who brought forward a Bill on it last year, the Government rejected it. In February, I tabled a question to the then Minister, Deputy Shatter, and he robustly rejected the suggestion of an independent policing authority. Up to very recently the Government was not entertaining the idea and was not learning the lessons that were becoming apparent.

The decision to amalgamate defence and policing under one Minister was a mistake. It was too much for one Minister to deal with and was disrespectful to the members of the Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces and I welcome the fact that it has ended. The warning signs were there for a long time and were repeatedly ignored.

I will comment towards the end of the contribution on what I hope will be a new beginning.

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission initiated a public interest investigation a number of years ago into what is known as the Kieran Boylan affair, which involved serious allegations that a major convicted drug dealer had operated as an informer, leading to the alleged entrapment and imprisonment of other drug dealers of lesser threat. He got off with €1.4 million of heroin and cocaine, without any explanation, which was a serious matter. GSOC conducted an investigation and submitted a report to the previous Minister but there has been no response to it. GSOC complained bitterly about the appalling lack of co-operation from the former Garda Commissioner and senior Garda management in that investigation over four years, which delayed the investigation considerably. The seven page summary is in the public domain and it indicated there was a failure to learn the lessons of the Morris tribunal, particularly with regard to the retention of contemporaneous notes. It is a very basic necessity to keep notes and record decisions. The issue of handling informers is a similar issue.

These matters were not responded to by the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, for months. He stayed schtum and did not say a word about the very severe criticism in the public domain. I chair the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions, and it brought in representatives of GSOC, as was its responsibility, to hear its concerns. The episode dragged on for months but it was not isolated. In 2013, Mr. Ian Bailey's legal representatives wrote to the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, on three separate occasions expressing concern about the failure of An Garda Síochána to co-operate with a GSOC investigation initiated on the basis of complaints from them. The Minister of the time did not deal with those issues and he recently responded to correspondence from my party leader, Deputy Adams, by indicating it was not his responsibility. Deputy Shatter eventually stood over a meeting between the former Garda Commissioner and GSOC to agree protocols of co-operation, so it was his responsibility. There was a failure to deal with the systemic failures which were emerging all the time.

There is also the issue of the Supreme Court decision not to extradite Mr. Bailey to France, as part of a French investigation, for questioning on the murder of Ms Sophie Toscan du Plantier. The Department of Justice and Equality and the former Minister would have been well aware that this Supreme Court decision was very heavily influenced by the emergence of a 2001 Director of Public Prosecutions report which found no evidence connecting Mr. Bailey to the murder. Moreover, it rubbished the Garda investigation of the time. Unfortunately, it took the former DPP, Mr. Eamonn Barnes, to intervene, after the High Court agreed to extradite Mr. Bailey, by e-mailing his former colleagues with very grave concerns. That forced the Department to hand over the document, which had been in its possession for all those years, to Mr. Bailey's legal team. It is quite clear that is what led to the Supreme Court decision. Despite this and reassurance from the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, that he would enter into dialogue with the Attorney General, nothing has happened since. Nothing has been done to reverse the injustice from all these years. As we assemble here today, the Department of Justice and Equality, on behalf of the State, continues to defend a civil case taken by Mr. Bailey and his partner, Ms Jules Thomas. This is more ongoing evidence of systemic failure and a lack of leadership as the issue drags on.

Our party has been critical of the unhealthy relationship between the offices of the Garda Commissioner and the Minister responsible for justice. It is not just about this Government as it affected previous Governments because of the system we have in place. In this Government's term the former Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan, argued that the closure of 140 Garda stations and cuts of over 10% in Garda numbers, which take them below the dangerous threshold of 13,000, as well as decreases in the numbers of Garda vehicles amounted to efficiency, modernisation and smart policing. That was the language used by Mr. Callinan to defend the Government's approach to the outrage of his own members as expressed through the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors. On the other hand, the Minister of the day defended the Garda Commissioner from all attacks, as we saw with the penalty points issue.

The former Minister for Justice and Equality extended the former Garda Commissioner's term in office as a form of gratitude for the role he played in overseeing cutbacks in the period of transition. We should consider how the former Minister for Justice and Equality on national television used information given to him confidentially by the Garda Commissioner to do down a political opponent, Deputy Mick Wallace. When the inevitable vote of confidence before the House was called, the Government stood full square behind the Minister of the day, despite the fact that the same people had led the charge to remove a Minister for Defence, Deputy Willie O'Dea, when he did exactly the same thing.

We all know what happened with the penalty points issue. The former Minister's approach was of circling the wagons around the Garda Commissioner and senior Garda management and attempting to discredit the credibility of the whistleblowers by robustly challenging them on the plinth when the O'Mahony report was published. The Comptroller and Auditor General pretty much vindicated the allegations by former Garda John Wilson and Sergeant Maurice McCabe, and there was an infamous appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts by the former Garda Commissioner when he described the actions of the two whistleblowers as "disgusting". We also had a Garda Inspectorate report, and after two years of procrastination, the matters were referred to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

We have also seen what happened to the confidential recipient when a transcript was released of the advice given to Sergeant Maurice McCabe. The confidential recipient was sacked as a result. There were allegations that the GSOC offices were bugged and the Taoiseach was advised clearly by the Department of Justice and Equality to wrongly quote the legislation which put the ombudsman under pressure rather than asking whether the offices were bugged. I hope Mr. Justice Cooke will get to the bottom of that issue. At the end of this debacle we witnessed the resignation of the Garda Commissioner.

There have been repeated crises and all this reflects the culture of politics in the Department of Justice and Equality and Garda Síochána, and that must change. I have recited these events to remind us of the challenges we face and of why public confidence has been shattered in the administration of justice. The Guerin report makes for devastating reading for the senior management of An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice and Equality, with chapter 19 a damning indictment of the practices in the Department. There is an indication of an unhealthy practice of circling the wagons in order that objectives can be fulfilled. There is evidence of indiscipline and incompetence, which is a reflection of the appalling management which must be dealt with. I hope the Garda Inspectorate and this panel of experts will be able to deal with the issue. We will give the process a fair wind but the matter must be dealt with. It is once again a vindication of Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

The Opposition will give the Minister a fair wind and she has started with encouraging words. We must see firm actions and a new, independent policing authority. The Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality yesterday heard excellent contributions and questions on the issue and I ask the Minister and her officials to look through all the statements. Perhaps they have already done so.

We learned a lot and will make recommendations to the Minister.

We need a freshly empowered ombudsman and Garda Inspectorate. The Garda Inspectorate is looking for powers of initiation and we will support it in that. The inspectorate, led by three senior personnel, who have outstanding international experience, has a role to play but it needs to be free from the shackles of ministerial control. It needs to be independent and to have powers of initiation to fulfil its important responsibilities.

We need to ensure that lessons are learned from all the mistakes that have happened over the past three years. There must be a fresh start involving a clear-out of people who want to protect the bad old day while reformers who want real change and to vigorously restore confidence in the administration of justice should be promoted. I wish the Minister well in her work. As long as she moves in that direction, she will have my support and that of my party.

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