Gardaí did not spy on watchdog

Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has insisted that no member of the force carried out surveillance, authorised or unauthorised, of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

Mr Callinan said: “It is something I have been speaking to my own membership about. I mean, it’s a given that, in any organisation like An Garda Síochána or the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, you are dealing with highly sensitive, personal details of not alone Garda members, but members of the fraternity that we are obliged under statute to investigate, that the utmost care is taken, has to be taken, in preserving the integrity of that information.

“I think the pigeon has come home to roost to a certain degree here, because all of the issues and all of the guarantees 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.