Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion. I wish Judge Rory MacCabe the best of luck in his new role. I do not know him personally, but I knew him in a former life in a professional capacity. I also want to compliment Ms Justice Ring on her work over the past six years. She posed a question to us in a recent interview. She questioned whether politicians "are actually committed to meaningful independent oversight of the gardaí". That should spur us all on to reflect on whether we are. If we are, how have we allowed GSOC to exist without adequate resources and without listening to it year after year? The latest GSOC report is the fifteenth it has published. The Government received the report on time but delayed publishing it.

When the appointments of Ms Emily Logan and Mr. Hugh Hume were being approved by the Dáil, if that is the correct word to use, and we discussed the issue, Ms Justice Ring took the opportunity to send a detailed letter not to all Deputies, but to those who contributed to the debate. She set out clearly, honestly and openly the problems and the obstacles posed by the founding legislation, which put up so many hurdles that it is almost impossible to negotiate, with investigations being sent back to the Garda so they can investigate themselves. With regard to An Garda Síochána, she stated:

There is a misconception that GSOC has a significant number of former Garda members as part of its investigative staff. There are five former Garda members, all of whom joined at the outset in 2007 and 2008 and thus have been involved in oversight for the last 13 years. There have been no former Garda personnel employed by GSOC since that initial set-up period.

She told us that training was a problem and was not built into the legislation. No provision was made for it and there were no resources to acknowledge it, as well as many other defects. I am using the word "defects"; Ms Justice Ring did not. She highlighted the good and the bad.

We have ignored that. Successive Governments have simply ignored that. During Ms Justice Ring's time on GSOC for the past six years, she sent three letters - one to Deputies and two to the Committee of Public Accounts - highlighting in an open and consistent way what was needed if politicians were seriously interested in an independent ombudsman's office. That is the challenge. Clearly, we are not, because we are colluding with a system that is inadequate.

Related to that is the attitude of An Garda Síochána. The fact that the Garda Commissioner and the other organisations representing members of the Garda, sergeants and so on expressed serious reservations about the proposed Bill because of the further oversight of the Garda is of a serious matter of concern when I reflect on the circumstances that led to the establishment of GSOC, the Policing Authority and the other body, the name of which escapes me. I call them the trinity of supervision. Looking back, we think of the 1970s and the "Heavy Gang". In the 1980s, we remember the case of Joanne Hayes and what An Garda Síochána was capable of there. When we were supposedly investigating the behaviour of An Garda Síochána, we investigated the morality of Joanne Hayes and her family. We can then fast forward to the Morris tribunal, which Deputy Howlin and former Deputy, Jim Higgins, played a very important role in setting up. The cost to the taxpayer is €70 million now. Foolishly, each Government decided that there was only a problem in County Donegal, and they are a bit different up there. We did not learn that maybe it was a practice that was going on everywhere. Later, we had the Smithwick tribunal on collusion, the Fennelly commission and the O'Higgins commission of investigation, which was my introduction to the Dáil in early 2016. I read the whole report. It was produced very speedily within a year. However, had Sergeant McCabe not kept a phone recording, God knows what might have happened to him. We have had all of that and many more besides. There are ongoing investigations into members of the Garda who have been suspended, the debacle over the fixed penalty points and the bogus breath testing and so on. Yet, An Garda Síochána thinks it does not need oversight. I am not referring to ordinary members of the Garda; I pay tribute to the ordinary garda on the ground. We know from the Policing Authority reports that are published month after month the wonderful role they have played on the ground. There was a break but they have come back. However, management needs to realise that gardaí are there to serve. Indeed, the Policing Authority and its chairman, Bob Collins, has brought that concept into focus. We are not talking about a police force, but a police service. Like Deputies are here to serve, the police are here to serve. They should be proud to have an independent oversight body. We should ensure that it functions independently and is adequately resourced.

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