Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government agreed to establish the independent review mechanism to deal with a variety of cases of complaints, not all of which, it turns out, relate to the An Garda Síochána, though a substantial number do. A number are about other bodies and experiences in court. Some of the complaints relate to property issues. There is a range of issues within the complaints which have been made. This is an independent process and I have been very keen and committed to ensure that from beginning to end it is seen as independent and robust. The Department has received a significant number of the recommendations at this point so the process should be completing over the next couple of months. Obviously, the legal advice has been made available to the Department in certain of the cases. The question now is to communicate that. As it is legal advice to the Department and as quite a number of parts of the advice refer to third parties, I must now find the best way to communicate as robustly and fully as possible the outcome of the process and the recommendations. In order to ensure that it fulfils those criteria and that we can communicate in the most effective way possible with the complainants, I have decided, having received the first cases just a couple of weeks ago and considered the recommendations, that the best way to proceed in keeping with it being a fully independent process from beginning to end is to ask a judicial figure to oversee the process of communication to complainants in each and every instance.

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