The final annual report from the Garda Síochána Complaints Board raises "two major questions that cannot be brushed aside or ignored", the Labour Party said today.
The party's justice spokesman Brendan Howlin said the questions the board chairman Gordon Holmes raise have to do "not so much with the board's own competence or capacity but with the willingness of the gardaí themselves to take engage with the disciplinary process and to take it seriously".
Mr Howlin noted the annual report's finding that no further action was taken by the Garda Commissioner in over half the cases where minor breaches of discipline by members were referred to him by the complaints body.
The Labour spokesman said this, and the findings that gardai were not engaging with the disciplinary process, showed "a still ongoing and apparently ingrained attitude of resistance by gardaí towards any system of oversight and accountability".
"He says that members of the Garda Síochána, apparently on advice or instruction from their representative bodies, in the main refuse to accept any attempt at an informal resolution of complaints against them."
"They do so because they are afraid, notwithstanding assurances to the contrary, that the matter might remain on their personal record.
"Unless these issues are addressed, in the context of new and improved relations between the Garda Commissioner, the Garda representative bodies and the new Garda Ombudsman Commission, the worry is that there is no reason to presume that the new Commission will have any better success in engaging with the Garda Síochána than the old Complaints Board did.
"The new Minister for Justice has a clear responsibility to ensure that the new system of Garda oversight is fully supported and assisted in its valuable work," he said.
Mr Howlin paid tribute to the "remarkable work" Gordon Holmes had done as chair of the Garda Complaints Board.
"With limited resources and required to operate a seriously inadequate system, Mr Holmes played a major role in ensuring that legitimate complaints by members of the public were addressed. Our society owes him an enormous debt of gratitude."