John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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103. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the number of the 311 plus cases referred to the independent review mechanism which have been reopened; the number which have been brought to a satisfactory conclusion; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23984/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy is aware, in May 2014 the Independent Review Mechanism (IRM) was established to consider allegations of Garda misconduct or deficiencies in the way that Gardaí had carried out investigations.

A panel consisting of two Senior and five Junior Counsel was established for the purpose, all selected on the basis of their knowledge of the criminal justice system. Recommendations were returned in all of the 320 complaints referred to the Panel and I accepted all of the recommendations. The majority of the recommendations were that I should take no further action. Reasons stated for this include cases where the complaints fell outside the remit of the review itself and the fact that there were still some ongoing matters either before the Courts or by way of investigations by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC). None of the IRM cases have since been reopened.

My Department has been following through on those cases where action was recommended such as referring issues to GSOC under section 102 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended, requesting reports from the Garda Commissioner under section 41 of that Act and establishing a number of Inquiries under section 42 of the 2005 Act.

I am conscious that some complainants were unhappy with the outcome of the review process. In circumstances where individuals have genuine but necessarily subjective concerns about how their particular cases were originally handled, it is inevitable that many complainants who were informed that no further action was recommended, or where the recommendation fell short of what they had hoped for, would be unhappy with that outcome. The crucial point, however, is that every case has been reviewed by independent counsel who made an objective recommendation based on the details supplied by the complainants themselves.