From Friday members of An Garda Síochána will have to account for their actions while on duty. This is one of the sections of the Garda Síochána Act, signed by the President last Sunday, which is being implemented immediately. Another requirement will be that the Garda Commissioner will have to report fully to the Minister.
Implementation of the sections dealing with the setting up of an Ombudsman Commission will take place in the autumn when the Minister for Justice will bring a resolution to both Houses of the Oireachtas nominating its members. They will then be appointed by the President and will proceed to recruit staff.
A commencement order to establish the Garda Síochána Inspectorate will be made when its members have been recruited. This process has already started, according to a Department of Justice spokesman. The inspectorate will report on the effectiveness and efficiency of the force.
The Garda Representative Association said that the accountability of its members in the discharge of their duties was a fundamental prerequisite of any police service. It believed a "constitutional conundrum" existed between the constitutional right of the member and the onus on the member to conform to a demand from their superiors for immediate accountability.
It said the international practice of allowing police officers 24 to 48 hours' grace before accounting for their actions was the best formula to accommodate this and should be considered.
The "effective and timely" implementation of the rest of the Act will be overseen by the Implementation Advisory Group under the chairmanship of Senator Maurice Hayes. It will report to the Minister on its progress by the end of December.
Other sections being implemented on Friday are: the need for the Garda Commissioner to account fully to the Government and Minister for Justice; the provision of all documents in the power of An Garda; the provision of statistical information to the Minister and the Central Statistics Office; the provision of power to the Minister to enact a "whistleblower's charter"; and a provision to allow for the secondment of PSNI officers to An Garda Síochána, and of gardaí to Europol.