Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be fair, there has been a huge amount of legislation in this area, no doubt partly in response to issues that have been raised by Deputies Daly and Wallace and by others. There is change occurring. We did not have an independent Policing Authority before. The effectiveness of the authority can be seen already in terms of gardaí being publicly held to account for their work.

We have much stronger GSOC legislation in place, but if there is a need to reinforce it, that will be done. We have protections in place for whistleblowers to encourage people to come forward with their issues, and the legislation is strongly designed to ensure those cases are taken seriously, handled independently and the person's privacy is protected.

We are on a journey of reform and I do not pretend the journey is finished. The work continues to evolve and I am sure the tribunal will have recommendations for the future. This House will have to listen to those recommendations and make a collective decision as to what changes should occur. That is the role of this House. However, we must allow the tribunal to do its work of identifying the sources of problems, if they exist, before coming back to the House within nine months, as we have asked it to do, so we can see what action needs to be taken on foot of these very serious allegations.

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