Cooke report - GSOC and gardaí must co-operate

You pay your money and you take your chances. That old cliché neatly sums up a dilemma following publication of the Cooke report. Bluntly put, people are now more confused than ever as to whether alleged bugging happened at the Dublin headquarters of GSOC, the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

Whatever way you look at it, questions remain unanswered. Inescapably, the terms of reference laid down by Government for such investigations dictate the outcome.

In the course of his four-month probe, retired judge John Cooke found no definitive evidence to support the commission’s belief that it was the target of security threats. The confusion in the public mind can be forgiven since the ombudsman continues to defend its view that the threats were credible. At the same time, Cooke has dismissed one alleged threat as not convincing and has described another as “highly likely” to have been caused by mobile phone tests in the area.