Sack watchdog bosses over handling of bugging claims says Shatter

Garda Ombudsman bosses should be sacked because they sought to cover up their failures in how they handled concerns that their offices were bugged.

The dramatic claim was made by the former justice minister, Alan Shatter, in a stinging attack on members of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC).

He said their investigation into alleged surveillance of their offices, which was carried out by a private security firm in October 2013, was “clearly premature” and that, under law, they should have informed him, as minister, it was taking place.

“From the start of this affair, GSOC have sought to cover up and keep secret a disturbing level of incompetence and failure to comply with their statutory obligations,” said Mr Shatter, who resigned as minister in May.

“This is unacceptable and it is contrary to the public interest that the current GSOC Commissioners remain in place,” he added.

The Sunday Times reported in February that the sweep of the GSOC offices had taken place following concerns it was under “high tech” surveillance. An independent inquiry into the matter by the retired High Court judge, John Cooke, said it is “impossible” to “categorically rule out all possibility of covert surveillance” at the offices.

However, the report published in June concluded that “the evidence does not support the proposition that actual surveillance” took place and “much less that it was carried out by members of the Garda Síochána”.

The Justice Minister, Frances Fitzgerald, told the Dáil yesterday that she has now asked GSOC to publish the findings of its own internal inquiry into who leaked the information about the security sweep to the Sunday Times journalist.

Explaining why that report was not made public, a GSOC spokesperson last week told the Irish Examiner: “This was a non-statutory, fact-finding investigation. It was akin to the kind of fact-finding exercise that an employer sometimes undertakes when it suspects that an act or acts of misconduct may have been committed by an employee.”

Ms Fitzgerald said the report should be published with some parts redacted to protect personal information and avoid any defamation issues arising. But Mr Shatter said that, in the interest of transparency, it “should be published in full”.

On the first day of the new Dáil term yesterday, Mr Shatter said he met with GSOC commissioner Simon O’Brien to discuss the Sunday Times report on February 10, who furnished him with a written briefing which “formed the basis” of the then minister’s speech to the Dáil the following day.

He said a second commissioner, Kieran Fitzgerald, confirmed that night on RTÉ’s Prime Time “the accuracy of what I informed the Dáil”.

However, Mr Shatter now claims that when both commissioners appeared before an Oireachtas Committee the following day they “proved incapable of detailing what occurred in a coherent manner”.

He said their “confused narrative and vague innuendo laid the foundations for accusations subsequently made that I had misled the Dáil and for weeks of unnecessary innuendo”.

Using Dáil privilege, Mr Shatter said: “Inexplicably, the GSOC commissioners took no steps to clearly set out the facts and facilitate the continuation of the controversy. I do not believe it tenable that the GSOC Commissioners remain in office nor is it acceptable that the matter of the leak now be ignored.”