Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support Deputy Mac Lochlainn's amendment. I do not suggest that anyone should get fired, but I feel there should be a head and the others should be called assistants. When Emily Logan operated as Children's Ombudsman and Emily O'Reilly as Ombudsman, they were seen as figureheads in their areas. It gave them a certain extra strength that they were more or less the boss.

The Minister of State rightly mentioned that there has not been a wonderful relationship between the Garda authority and the commissioners in GSOC. Having three commissioners rather than one head to deal with resulted in a lot of cat and mouse being played. As it turns out the senior ranks of the Garda did not seem to be answerable to any of the three of them.

We were never really sure, of the three of them, whether they were calling the shots evenly or whether one was in charge. As an outsider, I suspected that Mr. Simon O'Brien was the leading figure but perhaps I was wrong. I am concerned by the fact that his departure seems pretty sudden. He has been involved in cases that have not yet been resolved and we are concerned about it.

Given the way the reported bugging of GSOC offices was handled and the link to the Boylan affair, it is worrying. Deputy Clare Daly and I had a number of conversations with the GSOC commissioners and we were taken aback at their position when news broke in The Sunday Timesarticle. All did not sit well. While Mr. Justice Cooke carried out a paper review of what went on, he did not carry out an investigation. Despite the former Minister's promise to publish the Rits report to see the difference between it and the Verrimus report, it is disappointing that the Government has not seen fit to publish it to allay suspicions that everything was not as we were told.

Returning to the arrangement of three commissioners, as opposed to one, it seems that the main reason three were selected was because GSOC replaced the Garda complaints board. A number of commissioners and senior figures were involved in the latter rather than one person. Three were appointed so as not to upset the apple cart at the time. I am backing Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn on this point.

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