While the Minister for Justice Mr Shatter expressed his confidence in the Garda Ombudsman’s Commission (GSOC) yesterday he and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan expressed grave concern about leaks from the Garda watchdog.
The commissioner has suggested GSOC’s handling of the bugging controversy this week may have implications for its efforts to be granted unfettered access to the Garda’s computerised Pulse database. “I think the pigeon has come home to roost to a certain degree,” he said.
“All of the issues and all of the guarantees that we were seeking to secure in the new protocol arrangement are the very issues that come very much front and centre in the context of what has been happening in recent days. I am very, very concerned about confidential information leaking into the public domain.”
The protocols to which he referred, which centre on GSOC access to Pulse, are currently being negotiated.
Frustrated
The commission believes it has been frustrated by the Garda in accessing evidence central to some of its investigations into serious allegations of wrongdoing on the part of gardaí. GSOC has long campaigned for unfettered access to Pulse.
Mr Shatter refused the commission’s request last year but in recent weeks changed his view and said GSOC would be permitted access to Pulse for its investigation into the termination of penalty points by gardaí.
Last week he said he was extending that access to all investigations carried out by GSOC “from now on”.
Confidence
When asked yesterday if, in light of the events of the past week, he had confidence in GSOC and if members of the Garda had confidence, the commissioner said the Garda would work with the watchdog.
“It is the case that [GSOC] is a statutory body, an independent body set up to investigate matters of wrongdoing in members of an Garda Síochána. I will continue to co-operate as long as I am in office and I will ensure that my members cooperate in the fullest degree possible with that statutory body.”
He also dismissed the suggestion that if GSOC had been placed under electronic surveillance the Garda, or rogue members of it, were responsible.
“I want to unequivocally state that at no stage was any member of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission or any of its members under surveillance by an Garda Síochána. That was not the case.”
Speaking at the same event in the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, Mr Shatter disputed the narrative that had gained ground in the past week that suggested GSOC had definitely been placed under surveillance. He was hopeful the controversy would now "calm down" and that an investigation by the watchdog into who within its staff leaked the confidential security report to the Sunday Times would bring an end to the matter.
He expressed confidence in the three-person commission that heads GSOC: chairman Simon O’Brien and commissioners Carmel Foley and Kieran FitzGerald.
