Comreg set for talks over Morris recommendation
The report called on the regulator, Comreg, to make it obligatory for phone companies to provide information to gardaí within five days of a request and one day in emergencies.
"The tribunal recommends that ... Comreg should make it a condition of all future licences that a response should be made to garda queries in relation to fixed and mobile phone communications within a maximum period of five working days.
"Where a request is classified as urgent, a response should be forthcoming within 24 hours."
Justice Frederick Morris said this condition should be "stringently met" if a company is to keep its licence.
A spokesman for Comreg said the group had read the recommendation and would be "in contact with the relevant parties in due course".
The tribunal said it had been "scandalised by the extraordinary delay" by Telecom Eireann following garda requests for phone data in connection with the death of Richie Barron in October 1996.
A request for a list of incoming and outgoing calls for eight phone numbers was supplied to the firm on December 12, 1996.
However, a response was not provided until August 7, some eight months later.
The report said Eircom, which replaced Telecom Eireann, had rectified the "appalling inefficiency and neglect" within the company. It said Eircom now provided an excellent service to gardaí, but that there were 27 other operators in the market.
Under domestic and EU legislation, Comreg has only limited powers to set conditions for licences, now called authorisations.
The Morris report also called for the establishment of an independent databank, which would hold records of telephone traffic from all operators.
The Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) Act, passed earlier this year, obliges operators to store this data for three years.
Meanwhile, Justice Minister Michael McDowell yesterday said the gardaí transferred to Dublin in the wake of the Morris tribunal would not be interacting with the public.
"I think the (Garda) Commissioner is obviously addressing these issues carefully and according to due process and the legal advice available to him," he said.
"Nobody should infer that by moving these gardaí to Dublin, that they are in some way immunised from disciplinary procedures under the Garda Síochána code, or from potential criminal prosecution should the Director of Public Prosecutions decide.
"The people involved will be given positions that will not involve their interaction with members of the public," he said.
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