Results 1-20 of 67 for gsoc speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2022
Vote 24 - Justice
Vote 21 - Prisons (15 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Officials from GSOC appeared before us a couple of weeks ago. They told us that, in other jurisdictions, the general caseload is ten cases per investigator and GSOC now has 20 cases per investigator, which is considerably lower than the much higher caseload before this. Obviously there has been an increase in the budget and staffing for GSOC, and we went through that with them. Is there...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: ...stand out from that Committee of Public Accounts and that is one of them. It took 12 weeks for the committee to write its report and then took six years and three months to send the results of the GSOC investigation, which is a public interest investigation, to the DPP. We have just heard it is part of what was raised here. Do the witnesses agree the public interest is not served by...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: ...16 November. It tells us a little bit of something that the witnesses might confirm. I have often spoken of the lack of resources available and acknowledged that has an impact on the ability of GSOC to do its work. Mr. Justice MacCabe referred to the complexity of the investigation and suggested there was not great co-operation between OLAF and GSOC and he had no control over that....

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: When it came to it, he was interviewed for just one hour by GSOC, yet he had a lot of correspondence. When someone is there who clearly has knowledge and could have assisted, why was that assistance not availed of? He made it clear he was available to provide further information. This might give us an insight into the workings between the gardaí, the Commissioner and GSOC. Will the...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: As regards the Garda Commissioner and the deployment or secondment of gardaí, GSOC makes a request. Is that request usually acceded to? Is it always acceded to? Is there friction there? What is the relationship?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Obviously, the whole idea was that GSOC was set up so as there would be an independent investigation.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I want to move on to protected disclosures. At the end of 2022, after some disclosures were closed, GSOC still had 53 disclosures on hand. What is the number it has on hand at the moment that are still open?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Does GSOC categorise those? Obviously, I am not pursuing details - I understand the legislation on this - but do they fall into particular categories, and whom do they come from?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: How does GSOC categorise them?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Does GSOC categorise what is alleged?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: GSOC has not got sanction to go beyond the caseload of 20.

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: We often get material in here and it is more like we are the public accountability committee rather than the Committee of Public Accounts. With the number of inadmissible complaints, I suspect that GSOC is maybe not completely understood by the public. Is there a public information campaign around that? It would strike me that if GSOC reduced the inadmissible cases, it may well be able to...

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: GSOC is aware of that. In relation to the protection disclosures, as I want to go back to that, where did the majority of protected disclosures come from? Did they come from the gardaí themselves?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I will now ask about the non-pay element of GSOC's budget. Obviously, the bulk of that goes on the accommodation. GSOC has accommodation in Dublin and Cork. It is leased accommodation. In the event of there being sanction for additional staffing, will that accommodation be sufficient? Is it future-proofed and is there a break clause in it?

Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2022 - Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (8 Feb 2024)

Catherine Murphy: I want to go back to the types of admissible complaints. One of them is discourtesy. Presumably, that is the kind of thing that goes directly back to the Garda. Does GSOC then follow up to see that there is training to address some of the issues, or is that just something that is left exclusively to the Garda itself?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (18 Jan 2024)

Catherine Murphy: Is it not the case that the GSOC representatives have already been invited?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Nov 2023)

Catherine Murphy: ...a couple of years. Attention has been drawn again to the resourcing issue here. There was an allegation about the use of force and cases went to the ombudsman. We need to see issues not going to GSOC, if it is not appropriate for them to go there or if the complaint relates to something that training could alleviate. I do not have a problem with the Policing Authority coming up with a...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Nov 2023)

Catherine Murphy: .... That goes for members of the Garda as much as anybody else. In the interim, we should write to the Department of Justice and express our serious concerns about the resourcing issue concerning GSOC and the length of time it takes to deal with cases as a consequence.

Final Report of the Independent Scoping Exercise into the Circumstances surrounding the Death of Mr. Shane O'Farrell: Statements (17 Oct 2023)

Catherine Murphy: ...in the context of this scoping exercise. The terms of reference provided that Judge Haughton would be provided with section 101 and 103 reports from the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC. The independent review mechanism report was also to be fully considered. The judge was not provided by either report. He did not seek the GSOC section 101 report and the Department...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2023)

Catherine Murphy: ...reply goes into some detail. I was a member of the Committee of Public Accounts when it had a lot of debate about Templemore. The correspondence states that the matter was originally referred to GSOC by the then Garda Commissioner, Nóirín O'Sullivan, in June 2017. That is a six-year time lag. It is incredibly frustrating that it has taken so long for GSOC to conclude the...