Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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14. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the steps she proposes to take in view of the call from the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, for urgent legislative change to enable it to carry out functions appropriately; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27626/16]

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Last week at the justice committee, Judge Mary Ellen Ring expressed her frustration at GSOC's lack of power to hold An Garda Síochána to account. We warned the Minister about that when we debated the legislation. The minimal changes introduced ensured that GSOC as a body was designed to fail, which is the current situation. Gardaí are not co-operating. They are withholding information and documents when it suits them. What is the Minister going to do about it?

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I do not agree with the Deputy's analysis of GSOC. The GSOC report from 2015 indicated that it had received full responses to 93.6% of requests within the time limit of 30 days, with only 6.4% unfulfilled at 30 days. That represents a significant improvement in compliance with the protocols over 2013 and 2014. The average time taken to receive a compliant response was 22 days in 2015. There has been a huge improvement in the provision of data that need to be given by the Garda Síochána to GSOC. I can only encourage the Garda to improve on the 22 day timeline and to encourage and request the Garda Síochána to make sure there is 100% compliance.

Having said that, the Government appointed Judge Mary Ellen Ring just one year ago.

She is an excellent chairperson of GSOC. As the Deputy said, she spoke in front of the justice committee last week. I will certainly take what she had to say into account. I will meet her to discuss the details of further changes to the legislation that she has said she feels would be worth considering.

GSOC is getting on with a lot of work in the meantime, dealing with many complaints, managing them well and dealing with victims who have come forward. Its work is extremely important. As I said, An Garda Síochána has made considerable improvements in the rate of compliance and with regard to the timeframe. That is what is important. In general, the chairperson of GSOC called for changes to Part 4 of the Garda Síochána Act, which deals with the investigation of complaints, and referred to minor service issues that she felt should be managed by Garda line management, and I certainly agree with her about that. Those issues should be dealt with from a management perspective, as opposed to the disciplinary procedures by which they are dealt at present. I have had several discussions about changing that because it would make the procedures far more efficient if we got to that point.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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The chairperson did not paint the same rosy picture that the Minister has painted. Sadly, by way of a couple of examples, GSOC has waited two years on documents from the whistleblowers, Nicky Kehoe and Keith Harrison, after asking for them. The documents in respect of one of them have eventually arrived. The chairperson says in public that she supports whistleblowers. I ask the Minister what has the chairperson done to demonstrate her support for whistleblowers? Has she telephoned them? Has she written to them? Has she met them? They do not feel her support. They do not think that she has any appetite for what they have to say. We all must agree at this stage that whistleblowers are the key. If it were not for Maurice McCabe and John Wilson, we probably still would not even have a Policing Authority, even if it is not as independent as we would like it to be. We would not even be here without whistleblowers, and still they are not getting the respect they are due.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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As I have said in the House previously, robust procedures are increasingly being put in place within An Garda Síochána to make sure that the concerns raised by Garda whistleblowers are dealt with appropriately, and the Deputy has heard the Garda Commissioner herself talk about them. We have passed the Protected Disclosures Act, which is a very robust statutory framework within which workers, including members of An Garda Síochána, can raise concerns regarding potential wrongdoing. I believe that GSOC has the necessary independence and powers to carry out any investigation that is needed or that arises, but the legislation does provide a comprehensive suite of employment and other protections to whistleblowers who are penalised by their employer or suffer a detriment from a third party on account of raising concerns. We know the change in the culture of any organisation takes time, but there is clearly an obligation to put in place the best supports for whistleblowers so that people feel confident about coming forward, that there are procedures in place and that they will not feel further penalised because of the action that they have taken. The Deputy knows that An Garda Síochána is also working with Transparency Ireland to look at various procedures and that it has clearer mechanisms in place now to support whistleblowers than were there previously.

Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Judge Mary Ellen Ring also made the point that the protected disclosures system is not working as well as she would like it to work. The Minister should take a look at what she said. I am not making it up. She talked about GSOC not having the teeth to do what it would like to do. We said the same about the Policing Authority. Today Josephine Feehily was before the justice committee. Given that the Policing Authority has been considering the O'Higgins report, one of its earlier jobs, which raised serious concerns about the role the Garda Commissioner played in her efforts to undermine the credibility of Maurice McCabe, I asked Ms Feehily what she was doing about it. If Maurice McCabe had not taped that meeting in Mullingar, he would have been thrown under the bus. Does the Minister know what Ms Feehily said? She said it was outside of her remit and that it was up to the Minister. If the Minister fails to hold the Garda Commissioner to account, there is a great fear that the Minister could go the same way as a former Minister for Justice and Equality, because she cannot ignore what is in the O'Higgins report. Sadly, the Policing Authority, which we knew did not have enough teeth, does not have the authority to hold the Commissioner to account, but the Minister does. Will she do so?

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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What this Government and the last Government have done is put in place a new Policing Authority with an important role in this country to hold the police to account in a public way. It has started that work, as the country knows, and it is getting on with it. It is examining a whole range of issues regarding the management of the Garda Síochána and having ongoing private and public discussions with the Garda on a range of important issues. That is the biggest reform to the Garda Síochána that this country has seen, so I do not accept the Deputy's description once again. We see major change regarding the role of GSOC, the Garda Inspectorate and the Policing Authority. Implementing the various recommendations is what is important, as well as making sure that the many recommendations - I think there are more than 1,000 at this stage - from the various reports that have been carried out into An Garda Síochána are continued. We are making sure that An Garda Síochána has the resources and that that is what it is doing from a management perspective.