Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We certainly will. The Minister will have noted that Mr. Justice Charleton said the audio and the transcript of O'Higgins should have been produced, something I and Deputy Wallace have been calling for for a long time but which the Minister and his predecessor ignored.

An Garda Síochána is not a semi-State body and the idea that it would have a board of management, such as with a semi-State body, is ludicrous. The Commission on the Future of Policing recommended a move away from external scrutiny. This was beginning to work very well with the Policing Authority but the authority did not have sufficient legislative power. A number of the 50 recommendations are, basically, common sense but the Minister said he wanted a new complaints body, while the commission recommends a renamed GSOC with the powers that body has long advocated for as necessary to do its job properly. This is precisely the point made by Charleton. The legislation has been headed up and we could do that now because it would immediately improve the way complaints are handled. Indeed, we could have done it two years ago.

Structures alone do not change things. We have the vehicle to improve the structures that are there currently. As Charleton said, however, the bigger body of work is what he calls the mentality problem.

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