Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Sherlock said that this is a set-piece event with no opportunity for questions and answers. There is. He said he has questions but is not going to put them. If somebody has questions about this appointment, I would like to hear them. This is a public forum and I am sure the Minister would answer any questions that people have on the specific nature of the individual. It may be the case that there are problems with the process; I have not given that much consideration. However, each group has been given ten minutes to raise whatever concerns we have and if people have concerns about the process or the individual, albeit through lack of knowledge or whatever, they should raise them and vote against the motion; that is the responsible thing to do. Those of us on the Business Committee set the scheduling of this against the backdrop of the legislation as we have it now. That is what we are working with. If any group had a problem with that, they could have tabled it before now.

That said, we obviously know that Mr. Sullivan is being proposed as replacement on GSOC for Mr. Mark Toland who departed to take up his role as head of the Garda Inspectorate last October. I wish to acknowledge the role Mr. Toland played. The Garda Inspectorate, itself, has played an incredibly important role in the detailed work it has carried out over years and the work it continues to do under Mr. Toland should be recognised. As far as I am concerned, it is the key oversight body. Other people have said they welcome the pontifications of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, but I do not because I can already tell them what its report will state. It will state exactly what the Garda Inspectorate outlined years ago. Had the inspectorate been listened to over the years and the recommendations that it repeatedly made implemented, An Garda Síochána would not have found itself battered by scandal after scandal. However, there we have it.

Like other Deputies, I have no personal or prior knowledge of Mr. Sullivan. In some ways I give a guarded welcome to his appointment. The position certainly needs to be filled. We know that he was the US EPA's inspector general and that during that time he was forthright in his criticism of the Office of Homeland Security within that agency and what he described as it blocking his investigative work on the grounds of so-called national security. It sounds like the sort of good attitude that someone who is being appointed as a member of GSOC should have. I understand he worked as a US federal air marshal in that service; I will try not to hold that bit against him.

The key thing for GSOC is not who is appointed, but whether the organisation as a whole has the resources and powers it needs to allow him to do his job. Irrespective of how good somebody is, without the resources and the powers, the job will not get done. That is the real debate we should be having here. For years we have been making the point that GSOC really is a paper tiger. I welcome that of late GSOC has repeatedly stated that it does not have the powers under the legislation to do its job of holding the Garda to account properly. It does not have the resources to do it either. In the words of many of its members, which we have quoted previously, it is almost appears as if the organisation was set up to fail. It could not possibly do what it was supposed to do given how it is set up now.

Those of us on the Joint Committee on Justice and Equality who drew up the 2016 report on Garda oversight and accountability made a list of recommendations on amending Part 4 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 in order to give more powers to GSOC, including things like GSOC being empowered to investigate retired members, a statutory means of redress for GSOC where there is a failure to comply with requests for documentation or evidence; and enhanced powers to GSOC to review investigations and so on. These are issues that have been highlighted in the House on many different occasions.

During the debate on that report in February 2017, the former Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality told us that she would shortly go to Cabinet to secure approval to prepare heads of Bill to amend Part 4 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005. She also said that the Government needed to be absolutely sure that the committee's recommendations for changes were implemented. However, when members of GSOC appeared before the committee in February, they were asked if any of the recommendations had been implemented and if anything had been changed. They told us that nothing had changed, months on. The legislation has not even been published 18 months after the former Minister promised it was on the way. GSOC members may be getting frustrated with the slow progress. Proposals were submitted in December 2017 for changes to the current Act and we have had nothing yet.

We keep hearing about the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland; it has been bandied about as a panacea to every Garda ill.

It is not good enough that changes which could have been made now - changes that have been called for over many years and were committed to neither today nor yesterday - are being delayed until the commission reports. Whatever about sitting on changes to the legislation until such time as the commission reports, it is difficult to understand the excuse for not giving GSOC the resources it needs. GSOC has been very vocal in terms of its needs and what has been provided to it to date. It has been totally categoric in this regard, including in its remarks in February to the effect that the decision not to increase its staffing resources at that crucial time would undoubtedly result in its failure to meets its obligations to the public and its staff. GSOC predicted the future in that it has not been able to meet the expectations of the public or the obligations to its staff because the Government has not given it sufficient resources. That is a fact. GSOC currently has over 1,000 open investigations, which equates to approximately 30 per investigator. It is also investigating at least 25 whistleblower cases and has had to issue an apology for the slow pace in which they are being dealt with. In 2017, it asked for 12 additional staff to deal with the protected disclosures, in respect of which it was given five. Two of its investigators have been seconded to the Charleton tribunal. Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring has described it as half a protected disclosures unit. There is currently a tribunal under way in respect of protected disclosures. Do we need more? Would it not be better that GSOC be empowered to do its job and deal with those protected disclosures? The Minister will be aware, because we have raised this with him many times, that some of those protected disclosure cases have been with GSOC for almost four years because of a lack of co-operation on the part of the Garda in providing files. When the Garda Síochána indicates an intention to discipline some of its members and GSOC asks to sit in on that process, it is told to back off.

This time last year GSOC was given a commitment by the former Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Fitzgerald, that it would get the resources it needed. In February, however, Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring told us that it still does not have those resources. GSOC submitted a business case for additional resources in respect of which it is still awaiting a decision. In this regard, GSOC sought 37 additional staff at a cost of €1.7 million, which is a small amount of money in light of the fact that An Garda Síochána, in 2017, provided €7.7 million to Accenture for 49 staff, which is €7 million more for 12 additional staff. I find the latter incredible. If some of that money could be diverted, GSOC might get the powers it needs. It is an indication of the esteem, or not, in which up the Department has held GSOC up to now that, unlike the Policing Authority and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, it does not have its own budget or Accounting Officer. If we want to avoid having to establish more commissions of investigation or tribunals of inquiry we need to give GSOC what it needs to do its job properly.

This person may be the best thing since sliced bread. Regardless of whether he is, however, if GSOC does have the staff and powers it needs, then all we are doing is making the beds while the house is on fire. Sadly, this is what has got us into the situation in which we find ourselves regarding An Garda Síochána.

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