Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have been listening to some of the other contributions on this. As the Minister will appreciate, to have an independent oversight agency, it is not good enough just to be independent. It must also be seen to be independent. The public perception must be that the organisation is truly independent and can act accordingly. To give an example, without mentioning any names, I was contacted recently by a girl in her late twenties, outside of Dublin, who was travelling to work on a night shift, along a motorway, and was stopped by the traffic corps. Her tax was out of date since November. The traffic corps pulled her in and went through the procedure, but seized the car from her, leaving her standing on the side of the motorway at nearly midnight for two hours before somebody eventually came to collect her. She came to see me to tell me about it, because, naturally, she was very upset. I explained to her that I could not do anything for her. I told her I assumed that the members of the traffic corps acted within the legislation that enables them and that if she had an issue, she could complain to the local chief superintendent or take the matter to GSOC. That was the level of the engagement I had with her. She went away very frustrated because, with all the public discourse we have been having about GSOC, her perception, rightly or wrongly, was that it was the guards investigating the guards. Unfortunately, that is what is in many people's minds at the moment. We must take every step possible to address that perception by strengthening the independence of GSOC with as many independent investigators as possible.

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