Results 7,741-7,760 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: The fact GSOC has seven people on it suggests it is an ongoing stream of work.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: On protected disclosures, does GSOC have a profile it could give us? I ask it to provide the committee a note on the number of protected disclosures. I assume some of them are closed at this stage. I am looking for a broad outline of what they are about. I suspect they are equally to do with culture within an organisation because sometimes if one can deal with a matter by raising it...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: We will briefly go into private session at the end of this afternoon's engagement to address some housekeeping matters before the committee adjourns. Is that agreed? Agreed. This afternoon we will engage with officials from the Policing Authority to examine the 2020 appropriation accounts for Vote 41. We are joined in the committee room by the following officials from the organisation: Ms...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Ms Hall is very welcome. As detailed in the letter of invitation, she will have five minutes for her opening statement. I will give her a reminder after four minutes. I call Ms Hall for her opening statement.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: The lead speaker this afternoon is Deputy Hourigan, who has 15 minutes. The next speaker is Deputy Colm Burke who, along with all other members, will have ten minutes. I will allow members in for a second round if time allows. We may take a break. We will see how we go. We will evaluate that around 3 p.m.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I will let the Deputy back in, if there is time. Will the Policing Authority come back to us on that point, after it has had consideration, in order that we will have an outcome?

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: When the Garda is asked for statistics, it says it does not publish statistics and that one has to go to the Central Statistics Office for them. At the same time, the CSO publishes the crime statistics with a disclaimer that they are under revision. We have already heard from Ms Hall about very serious crimes that have been misclassified. What is her view on the status of crime statistics?...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I have been a regular reader of policing plans over many years. Part of the reason I have been interested in them is that I have looked at the distribution of resources, which of course is the responsibility of the Garda Commissioner. If you do not have a sufficient number of gardaí, you get a reactive type of policing. It has a real impact. There are particular types of crimes that...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I have had meetings over the years with senior officers of the Garda who told me that the outlook of divisional officers was, essentially, "what we have, we hold".

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I hope Ms Hall's optimism works out. Some of the ways the divisions were realigned lead me to have serious doubts.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Okay. Several retirements are due at the same time. We talked to the Garda Commissioner about this matter last week. It is not an ideal situation from the perspective of workforce planning or institutional memory, etc. I asked the Garda Commissioner about another aspect where he said he was not seeing a pattern. Anecdotally, however, I am hearing about people retiring before they are...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Regarding suspensions, I have some responses to parliamentary questions on this issue. One of the longest suspensions was for eight years, which seems extraordinarily long. The people suspended have issues in this regard, but, equally, there are also questions here regarding what kind of a process would allow something to go on for that long. It seems like an inordinately long suspension,...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Yes, and that is fair enough. It is not always straightforward. Turning to the Policing Authority itself, it is holding another organisation to account. To do that, the Policing Authority's own board must have the authority to do that, and that is why is it important that it is above reproach. Late last year, there was an issue with a board member concerning the handling of a disciplinary...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Okay. I call Deputy Hourigan.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I will just come back in on a few things. On the 14% of emergency calls that were not responded to, were the automatic recordings preserved? Was the Policing Authority able to listen to those?

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: That will be essential.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: The audio recordings will be critically important in telling whether there was something more than that involved in some cases.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Absolutely. It takes courage to make such a call. It used to be the case that people would not come to a public representatives with issues of domestic or sexual violence but that is not the case anymore. People will come forward. Very often, they lack confidence and not having confidence in a service that is responding has really doubled down on-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: In a domestic violence incident, there is also normally in good policing a follow-up.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (7 Apr 2022)

Catherine Murphy: That follow-up is equally important because, very often, pressure is applied to tell the authorities to go away and that it is all sorted.