Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I join with other Members in endorsing this proposed appointment of Mr. Sullivan as a commissioner to GSOC. He seems a very fine person. He seems to be very well qualified and has a long history of involvement in federal agencies and in law enforcement. He has very extensive investigative experience and has served as a deputy special agent with the US Secret Service. His curriculum vitae reads very well and he has a lot of relevant experience, as well as a reputation of being fearless and not afraid to stand up and speak out when necessary.

I am sure he will make a good commissioner and I wish him well. However, I have to express some concern about the process which is under way. While it is strictly in keeping with the legislation providing for the appointment of commissioners to GSOC, it is not really very satisfactory. Apart from Government, Members of this House do not know anything further about Mr. Sullivan than what we read on paper and what has been provided to us by the Department. It is no reflection on Mr. Sullivan himself but it would be far better - and would give him a stronger mandate - if an arrangement had been made for him to come in and meet with the justice committee and to have an opportunity to exchange views and be questioned on his background and his attitude to things in order that Members of this House could assess his suitability for this very significant post. In the interest of openness and transparency, and to enable Members of this House to do their job properly, it would have been much preferable if that opportunity had been allowed to members of the justice committee. As things stand, we have no choice but to take the Government's word on this. How could we go off and research somebody? It would be much better to meet candidates face to face and interact with them to get a sense of what they are like, and of their suitability or otherwise for a job.

This has been presented to us as a fait accompli. I accept that Mr. Sullivan is well qualified on paper and I am certainly not going to object to his appointment. However, it would be better to have had proper engagement with this prospective candidate. Having said that, I wish him well. He is entering into an organisation which is very important as the oversight body and watchdog for An Garda Síochána, though I do not know how familiar he is with the issues affecting GSOC at the moment. The organisation is extremely poorly resourced in terms of funding and there are issues around appropriate senior staff. There are issues around its powers and there is an undoubted need of substantial reform. There is not much of a point in having a watchdog unless it has teeth and we know that GSOC lacks teeth at the moment, not as a result of shortcomings on the part of people at the top of the organisation but as a result of its under-resourcing and the fact that it does not have adequate staff to carry out its important remit, which is to take complaints from the public about the performance by members of the Garda of their duties and to address issues raised by members of the Garda themselves.

It is important that the public has a high level of confidence in its police force but, for various reasons, public confidence in the Garda has taken quite a battering over recent years. There is an issue relating to the low morale of members of the Garda as a result of all the trials and tribulations they have had over many years. If the issues relating to whistleblowers had been dealt with properly at an early stage, we would have avoided a lot of the damage that has been done to public confidence and to morale within the force, and we would have avoided the procedures we are going through now in respect of investigations and the tribunal.

We are very good in this country at setting up oversight and watchdog bodies but we are very poor at resourcing them properly so they are hamstrung in doing the job. Unless those bodies are equipped to do the job properly, we will inevitably end up with situations where there has not been and there cannot be an adequate response to complaints made. They can then fester and become serious issues. That is what we have with the whistleblowing issue in the Garda at the moment and all of the damage that has been allowed to do. I refer also to the damage that was allowed to happen to individuals. It is important, from that point of view, if any public body is to function properly, that there is a well resourced and empowered oversight body to ensure that organisation works to the best effect for its own members and for the public.

GSOC acknowledged it is an organisation with serious issues. It has stated that it does not believe that complainants' issues are best addressed by the current system. That is a shocking admission for the organisation itself to make. For some time now, GSOC has raised these concerns. It has said that it needs to become an independent body and that it also needs proper resources to employ the kind of necessary and senior investigative staff required to carry out its duties adequately. Greater powers are also needed. GSOC has not, by any means, been silent about this. It has been rasing these concerns about its inability to respond adequately to complaints for a number of years. It has been doing that with consecutive Ministers. It started by doing it in one-to-one meetings with Ministers and by raising concerns confidentially. Then it had to become more public because Ministers made promises that GSOC's concerns would be addressed but they were not. They went unheard for a long time.

It was not until last January that GSOC felt that it had no choice but to go public about its concerns. Increasingly, it was being criticised for its failure to deal expeditiously with complaints coming before it. We are dealing with one of those issues later on tonight - I refer to the late Mr. Shane O'Farrell. There are many other scandalous cases like that as well that have not been addressed in a timely manner. We know that justice delayed is justice denied. That is what is happening because of the Government's failure to resource GSOC properly.

After ten years in operation and having handled more than 23,000 complaints from the public, GSOC is in a very strong position and understands what its own shortcomings are. It has called for radical changes. Its proposals include allowing GSOC to become a fully independent agency, that it would be constituted as such and that it would operate similarly to how the Committee of Public Accounts operates. It is an extremely unhealthy situation where the funding Department has oversight and responsibility for GSOC and at the same time has oversight and, as we know, an unhealthy relationship with the Garda. How can GSOC operate independently and with full confidence that it is going to be listened to while it is under the wing of the Department of Justice and Equality? It just does not work. It means we have a watchdog that does not really have teeth. That issue needs to be addressed.

We continue to tie the hands of GSOC because of the Government's failure to tackle this. There are endless delays giving it the necessary powers and resources and we are paying a big price for that. I refer to ongoing concerns among the public about lack of confidence in the Garda and its ability to police because of a lack of oversight. We cannot allow that to continue.

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