‘Alarm’ at Shatter’s failure to disprove bug claim

An Oireachtas committee probing the GSOC crisis has expressed “alarm” at Alan Shatter’s failure to back up his Dáil statement that the ombudsman’s office was not bugged.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, chairman of the Public Services Oversight Committee, has written to the justice minister expressing concern that he did not fulfil his promise to deliver a summary of the differences between two conflicting reports into whether GSOC was subjected to electronic surveillance.

After Garda Ombudsman Simon O’Brien indicated to TDs that a report by British security company Verimus pointed to surveillance, Mr Shatter told the Dáil he had ordered a “peer review” of the evidence by Irish firm Rits which had found “no evidence at all” of bugging.