Surge in number of gardaí going to watchdog

The Garda Ombudsman has received a surge in garda whistleblower complaints this year, with 13 disclosures to date in 2017 compared to 11 over the previous three years.

The development comes as the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) secured sanction for five extra staff from the Department of Justice to investigate what has become a backlog of such cases.

Gsoc welcomed what it said was a “starting allocation of personnel” but said that, before now, it had not been given any additional staff or resources to investigate these complicated complaints since it was given a role to do so in 2014.