GSOC must ask itself if it is fit and objective enough to do its job

The difference between last week’s big story — Pantigate — and this week’s — the alleged bugging of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’s (GSOC) office — is about 100 yards.

That’s what separates Miss Bliss’s Panti Bar on Dublin’s Capel Street and the GSOC office. Whether those near neighbours are in the habit of borrowing a cup of sugar from each other, I don’t know. It will hardly be the point at issue today when GSOC appears before the Joint Oireachtas committee on Public Service Oversight and petitions.

My first thought on reading John Mooney’s account in the Sunday Times, of the alleged bugging was that whoever was listening through the keyhole couldn’t hear a blessed thing with all the caterwauling up the street. What else could they do except bug.