Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Fennelly report is another absolutely damning assessment of the upper echelons of An Garda Síochána and Garda management. An alarming situation emerged in which a number of ex-Commissioners, a serving Commissioner, and their deputies were allegedly unaware of the existence of the practice of recording non-999 calls. Mr. Justice Fennelly has had to take at face value their accounts and their apparent lack of knowledge of the practice of recording those calls. In view of the fact that all of those gardaí were progressing through the upper levels of An Garda Síochána over the past 30 years, it paints a picture of a glaring disconnect between Garda management and its officials. At a basic level, there is an apparent lack of understanding of the implications of the data collection, data control and data retention procedures.

The decades old practice of recording calls was fundamentally changed by one garda in the course of upgrading the telecoms hardware equipment at divisional stations. A garda in charge of the telecoms sections of the force appears to have kicked all of this off. This garda, who was in charge of a specialised section - I stress a specialised section - did not have a full grasp of the technologies he was installing or their capabilities. These changes have proved to be a consequential shift in policy across the telecoms operation of An Garda Síochána about how certain information and intelligence was gathered and possibly used. Such a shift, if it was to be implemented, would normally only be made by top management.

The lack of good governance and the lack of procedures and rules to be adhered to has again come to the fore in An Garda Síochána. A situation developed in which it was left to the telecoms staff at each divisional station to implement their own rules around what was recorded, who would have access to recordings and what was to be done with them when they were no longer required, which is just as important. That is the door which was opened to further abuse of the recording facilities.

Members of Bandon Garda station investigating the du Plantier case recorded a line that was not authorised by the telecoms section. To date, despite investigations, it still has not been determined how this situation arose. It is standard practice for every other organisation that takes calls from the public to be obliged to inform callers that the call may be recorded for whatever reason or to ask if consent is given to that recording. It is very difficult to see how the question of what led An Garda Síochána to believe that procedure did not apply to the recording of non-999 calls can be answered.

The fact remains that An Garda Síochána has in its possession, by virtue of this illegal practice, a huge volume of recorded sensitive material about citizens in this country. It is becoming increasingly clear that the State and its institutions have a sense of entitlement to the personal data of its citizens and are far too relaxed about it. The Data Protection Commissioner's warnings of late are indicative of a deep-rooted problem which goes way beyond An Garda Síochána.

In relation to this report, the Attorney General did not go to the line Minister in the first instance. There is a question there that absolutely has to be answered. Was there some reason there was no trust between the Attorney General and the line Minister? Why did the Taoiseach not go directly to the line Minister? I think they are fair questions. They are fair questions that the Taoiseach needs to answer because it seems there is something not routine about this. It does not matter who that line Minister was. There is something very odd about that practice and about what happened. It is absolutely essential that these questions are fully replied to. The Taoiseach asked the Attorney General to go back and check the information. She came back empty-handed. Obviously the visit to the Garda Commissioner on the Sunday night happened. That whole area requires a proper reply.

To finish up, I feel really sorry for people in An Garda Síochána who are out doing their work every day and who are trying to do it to the best of their ability. Morale is definitely on the floor. It is one crisis after another. It is essential that morale is rebuilt, but it will not be unless trust is re-earned. Re-earning trust is about addressing issues and about those kinds of questions being answered. Why, for example, was the line Minister bypassed in this particular instance by both the Taoiseach and the Attorney General? Was their some lack of trust? What was the reason for that?

See this speech in context