Logan will be Ireland’s first Police Ombudsman

Emily Logan will assume the role once the Office of the Police Ombudsman is operational, sometime later in the year.

A former human rights chief and current GSOC commissioner has been appointed to be Ireland’s first Police Ombudsman.

The new position replaces the three-person leadership of GSOC leadership with a single, clear leader.

Emily Logan will assume the role once the Office of the Police Ombudsman is operational, sometime later in the year.

The Police Ombudsman will head an expanded, strengthened, and renamed GSOC as part of a major restructuring of the policing and security oversight architecture in Ireland.

This is being ushered by the landmark 290-page Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024, which implements much, though not all, of the recommendations made by the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland (CoFPI) in September 2018.

Justice Minister Helen McEntee announced on Tuesday that she had brought the required resolutions through the Oireachtas recommending Ms Logan for appointment by the President as the new Police Ombudsman.

She said Ms Logan was nominated for the role following an open, competition undertaken by the Public Appointments Service.

The minister said the Government approved the nomination last week and Ms Logan’s appointment by the President will take place on commencement of the Act.

“Ms Logan will be appointed as Police Ombudsman by the President when I commence the Act later this year and reconstitute GSOC as Fiosrú – the Office of the Police Ombudsman, with an expanded remit for investigating allegations of wrongdoing by Garda members,” Ms McEntee said.

“As current GSOC Commissioner, a former Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, and Ireland's first Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan is eminently qualified to perform the role of Police Ombudsman and the Government was pleased to support her nomination."

Ms McEntee said that in the meantime Ms Logan will continue as a GSOC Commissioner passed the conclusion of her term this August to ensure a transition to the new body.

When GSOC was set up in 2007, and for many years after, the Government and the Department of Justice were keen to avoid having a single head of the body as there was a fear it could lead to direct conflict with the Garda Commissioner. A three-person leadership was preferred.

The CoFPI recommended that the Government consider the need to have a three-person leadership under a restructured and expanded body.

During the legislative process for the 2024 Act, An Garda Síochána, led by the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris were very outspoken in their concerns regarding powers being given to the new Police Ombudsman.

Likewise, GSOC made submissions expressing its own concerns that the act did not contain “an explicit obligation” on the Gardaí for “timely and full cooperation” with the Police Ombudsman.

It said this in turn could compromise an obligation on the Ombudsman in the act to perform its duties in a timely and efficient manner.

The 2024 act creates a new internal Garda Board, to which the commissioner is accountable for the performance of his duties.

The act also merges the Policing Authority and the Garda Inspectorate into the Policing and Community Safety Authority and expands its functions.

In addition, a new Independent Examiner of Security Legislation is being set up – the first of its kind – with a very wide remit, although concerns have been expressed at the lack of its powers.

As reported in the Irish Examiner last month, the Attorney General has asked the Chief Justice for nominations for this sensitive role.