Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

A point I have made on a number of occasions, but which I will make again, is that the Minister is operating a double standard in the various agencies under her Department's remit. In response to a parliamentary question that I put to her on how many staff or employees under the Department had been suspended from their jobs pending an investigation, I was informed the number was 26. I put the same question to every single Department. The number in the Department of Justice and Equality, 26, was the highest mentioned in any of the responses. Furthermore, I asked the Minister whether she could state the affected bodies under her Department. I have still not got an answer several weeks after I put the question. I was told the information was not available.

Is there a double standard, where the norm under Department of Justice and Equality is that if there is an investigation one is suspended? I ask because in the case of Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan, the head of the Garda, against whom some of the most serious allegations one could possibly levy against a Garda Commissioner are made, ones that if there was a scintilla of truth in them would make her completely unsuitable for her job, we are told it is okay for her to stay in position while the investigation is ongoing. This House was informed wrongly that it was not normal practice to remove a person in these conditions but, in fact, that is what happens in the Department of Justice and Equality for other employees. For the Commissioner, it is not so, and we get bogus arguments about due process. The fact of the matter is we cannot prejudge the outcome of the investigation but it is normal practice in the Department that if there are serious allegations, officials are suspended. That happens because there is a potential, if somebody remains in position, that it compromises the investigation. Where could that not be more true than in an investigation into the Garda Commissioner and in view of the seriousness of the allegations that are being levied against her. It is shocking.

Deputy Mick Barry referred the liaison committee and the reports we are getting about an internal disciplinary action taken against the whistleblower, Superintendent Dave Taylor, when he returns to work. We have allegations that the Commissioner is already using her position to frustrate whistleblowers and the proper investigation of the matters which Mr. Justice Charleton is looking into. It could not be more serious when one considers the credibility of the Garda is being called into question with a million fake breath tests, with 147,000 wrongful summons, with 14,000 drivers wrongly convicted, all this on top of the treatment of Sergeant Maurice McCabe and the whistleblowers. The reputation of the Garda is in shreds. There is the failure of Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan to give the information about all of this to the Policing Authority and the fact that she knew about it for three years and we only heard about it in March 2017. This is shocking and the Government and Fianna Fáil still think it is okay that she stays in position. That is not to say let us abandon natural justice. It is to say she should not remain in position pending the outcome of that investigation.

If the Government and Fianna Fáil are not willing to take that action and send out that signal in regard to matters as serious as this around Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan, how can all the other references in these motions about root-and-branch change be taken seriously? It has no credibility if the Government does not show a willingness to take action in regard to Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan.

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