Results 1-20 of 158 for garda speaker:James Lawless

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Pre-legislative Scrutiny of the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Bill 2024: Discussion (16 Apr 2024)

James Lawless: ...; Mr. Brendan Bruen, principal officer at the Department of Justice; Assistant Commissioner Justin Kelly and Detective Superintendent Steven Meighan from the organised and serious crime unit of An Garda Síochána; and Mr. Sean Guerin SC and Ms Kate Egan BL from The Bar of Ireland. I thank them all for giving of their time and attention today and also for their submissions...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...mode so they do not interfere with the sound system. Sometimes they interfere with the recording of a meeting. The primary purpose of this and the next session, when we will hear from senior gardaí, is to discuss recent arson attacks on centres or on buildings rumoured to be centres for international protection applicants and temporary protection applicants. There has been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...today to deal primarily with the arson attacks. That is the focus of the session, but there are lots of other interesting topics that naturally spill out from that. We are going to hear from the assistant Garda commissioner and the deputy Garda commissioner later, but I think the phrase that was used previously is that there is no evidence to suggest that this is a conspiracy. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...on a particular place. I have heard it said in connection with recent incidents in Celbridge and Leixlip in my constituency but also around the country that people who wanted to forewarn the Garda have struggled. They wanted to say the Garda should keep an eye on a place because there is an issue. Does Ms McDonald want to answer that? As far as she is aware, is there a channel in place?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: That is what I was going to discuss next. A relatively sophisticated operation would be required of the Garda, for example, monitoring social media channels, working with confidential informants and using other intelligence sources. Our Garda witnesses will have an opportunity to respond, but it strikes me that such work is not filtering down to station level. Perhaps that is a gap which...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. There was a pro-Ukraine rally and a pro-Palestine rally, but there was also a far-right rally. I am told by people who were present that the Garda did not interfere and, effectively, gave free run to the far-right rally, which included people who had been charged before the courts for previous offences of that nature. That is troubling....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...that the collective is a group that does advocacy in this area. It disseminates information and combats some narratives. We now turn our examination to engagement with representatives from An Garda Síochána. I welcome Dr. Shawna Coxon, deputy commissioner, and Ms Angela Willis, assistant commissioner. They are both familiar with the committee. I think we met Dr. Coxon at...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...was harassment. There was a quite menacing atmosphere. The witnesses might not be fully versed on the incident, which I appreciate, but it has been suggested that it took a long time to have gardaí present on the ground. I believe there was a single Garda car. I have been told that, for 36 hours preceding the incident, there were conversations online and protests being fanned up...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...to me, as Chair of this committee, that we have not seen more arrests, investigations and prosecutions. I know there is a sequence and people do not go straight to court. Obviously, the Garda has to investigate, detect, arrest, question and charge. There is a cycle and lead time involved. However, I have heard it said many times, perhaps not by the Garda, to be fair, and it may be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Arson Attacks: Discussion (5 Mar 2024)

James Lawless: ...community who have put their hands up to warn of trouble or that something will kick off because an issue is festering somewhere have found it difficult to get through to a relevant person in the Garda. We speculated in the earlier session that an approach could be taken at headquarters or senior level. I appreciate there is a degree of sophistication as to how we monitor events that may...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill: Discussion (13 Feb 2024)

James Lawless: I remind members and witnesses to please switch their mobile phones to silent or flight mode. The purpose of today's meeting is to consider the general scheme of the Garda Síochána (recording devices) (amendment) Bill. We will have engagement with several stakeholders as part of our scrutiny of the general scheme. The scrutiny has been expedited as the matter was referred to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill: Discussion (13 Feb 2024)

James Lawless: Before we move on, I wish to drill into that answer because it is pertinent to the entire discussion. Mr. O'Sullivan said that in the use of this technology, the Garda is not attempting to make identifications. #the gist of what he said was that the intention is to reduce information to a smaller subset. I do not quite get that. Is the purpose not to retrospectively scan a crowd scene, as...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill: Discussion (13 Feb 2024)

James Lawless: In the Foot Locker example, as opposed to scanning a crowd scene, retrospectively or otherwise, if an individual is suspected of perpetrating a crime in the footage, the Garda would almost tag the individual and look to see where he or she appears in other frames or in other video footage. Is that correct? It is a matter of tracing the movements of a particular individual through a set of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill: Discussion (13 Feb 2024)

James Lawless: We are resuming our engagement on the general scheme of the An Garda Síochána (recording devices) (amendment) Bill. We invite those witnesses joining us online to log in. They may take a minute to do whatever they need to do. If the witnesses are online, we are trying to get them connected. They might be able to hear us but not see us. We are working on it. I welcome our...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Policing Matters: Discussion (Resumed) (7 Dec 2023)

James Lawless: The purpose of today's meeting is to continue our engagement on matters of policing the city centre, the far right and protests. We will also discuss resources for An Garda Síochána and examine the events in Dublin two weeks ago. We have met the Garda Commissioner and we are due to meet the Minister for Justice today. However, the Minister has been delayed at a Cabinet meeting....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Policing Matters: Discussion (Resumed) (29 Nov 2023)

James Lawless: ...from Deputy Ward. Deputy O'Reilly will be joining as his substitute. Members should ensure their phones are on silent or airplane mode so as not to interfere with the sound system. I welcome Garda Commissioner Drew Harris. He is joined by Deputy Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon and Assistant Commissioner Cliona Richardson. They are all very welcome to the committee. The purpose of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Policing Matters: Discussion (Resumed) (29 Nov 2023)

James Lawless: ...police presence in the city centre and elsewhere. This week, I looked at what is often referred to as the disclosures report from Mr. Justice Peter Charleton. He did a very thorough review of the Garda and operational issues in 2018. I appreciate that the current Commissioner was in not the job at the time. The third recommendation in that report, however, was that gardaí should...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Policing Matters: Discussion (Resumed) (29 Nov 2023)

James Lawless: ...the time because we have to move on from member to member swiftly. In my introductory remarks, I mentioned the suggestions made on last night's "Prime Time" programme by a representative of the Garda Representative Association, GRA. I have heard from many other sources as well, though, that individual gardaí were being called up not through a central command communication but...