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Joint Committee on Justice and Equality debate -
Wednesday, 27 Sep 2017

Recent issues relating to An Garda Síochána: Discussion

I ask everyone please to switch off all mobile phones as they interfere with the sound recording system.

The purpose of today's meeting is to meet with the Policing Authority to discuss a range of issues relating to An Garda Síochána, including the falsification of Garda breath test data; the handling of senior Garda management promotions; following last week's committee meeting with Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, his recent audit of child protection relevant to the Child Care Act 1991, section 12; and the police using leading systems effectively, PULSE.

On behalf of the committee I welcome Ms Josephine Feehily, chairperson of the Policing Authority, Ms Helen Hall, chief executive and Ms Margaret Tumelty head of policing, strategy and performance. They are joined in the Gallery by Ms Karen Shelly. The witnesses will be invited to make an opening statement and this will be followed by a question and answer session. They are familiar with the procedure.

Before we begin I draw the attention of witnesses to the fact that by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to make an opening statement. When the chief executive and I last met this committee, a year ago almost to the day, the authority was just nine months old and I was largely looking forward, describing our first steps in establishing a framework to support the authority's statutory function of overseeing the performance of the Garda Síochána and describing what we might do in relation to a range of matters, including senior Garda appointments. I look forward today to giving you a flavour of what has been achieved in a year and nine months and perhaps of where we might be going next.

Turning first to performance oversight, which is our overarching function, given the very large number of potential areas of work for the authority, our approach to performance oversight has to be planned and disciplined as far as possible, based on a number of principles: to work in a way which is thematic with a view to bringing a focus and depth to each theme and to cover the breath of performance issues over time; to use the policing plan as an essential foundation document by setting priorities and setting performance targets which can to a large extent be measured and then examining progress monthly and to research sources of data, information and experiences which are external to the Garda Síochána, partly to help us understand our themes but also to enable the authority to bring depth to each theme and to provide a basis for a challenging conversation with the Garda Síochána if appropriate. We make overseeing the Garda response to the recommendations made by other bodies a central pillar of our work, for example, the committee may have recently seen our third report on the implementation of the recommendations in the Garda Inspectorate on changing policing in Ireland. As far as possible we try not to duplicate the oversight work of others, for example, the issues in respect of the Garda College.

The day-to-day work of supporting this approach is carried out at various levels of information gathering and engagement at official level; formal meetings of authority committees with senior gardaí and formal meetings of the full authority with the Garda Síochána at Commissioner level 11 or 12 times a year, five of which are in public this year. The persistence inherent in this framework, and the rigour it is bringing, represent a very big change for the Garda Síochána, for the Department of Justice and Equality and for oversight of policing more generally. Within this framework, for example, the authority held a planned meeting in public about roads policing in April last.

Another theme chosen by the authority’s policing strategy and performance committee in its work plan for this year was the area of the treatment of children by the Garda Síochána, as both victims, suspects and, indeed, as members of the public. Considerable work has been done in this area and I am aware the committee may wish to discuss this topic further.

Since we last appeared before the committee, the authority completed its work in developing and establishing a code of ethics for the Garda Síochána in the timeframe given to us in the Garda Síochána Act. The code was launched in January last by the Tánaiste and then Minister for Justice and Equality. In our approach to the code, we went beyond the statutory requirements and established a code for all those who work in the Garda Síochána. Having a code is only a first step, although an important one of which the authority is proud. It must now be embedded in all aspects of Garda work. While it is the responsibility of every person in the Garda Síochána to behave and work ethically, it is the responsibility of the Commissioner and Garda leadership to ensure the code is rolled out and embedded. We are now overseeing the development of a plan by them to embed the code and we will continue to drive its implementation.

The authority has a range of responsibilities with appointments in the Garda Síochána, all of which are specifically regulated either in the Act or statutory instruments, and all of which are different. For Commissioner and deputy commissioner, our role is to agree the requirements for the jobs with the Minister, to ask the Public Appointments Service to run a selection competition and to nominate one name from that competition to the Government for each position. Section 9 of the Garda Síochána Act sets this out.

For the ranks of superintendent to assistant Garda commissioner, inclusive, our role is to undertake competitions ourselves in accordance with regulations and to make appointments to sanctioned positions. The committee will be aware that previously the competitions were run by the Garda Síochána and appointments were made by the Government. Within the framework of the statutory instrument, the authority set about establishing selection processes which would be as transparent as possible, be confidential, meet the highest standards of fair procedures, be mindful of reports of perceived bias in previous selection processes and be in line with best practice in modern selection practices. In this context, we also had regard to audit recommendations made by the Commission for Public Service Appointments in 2015.

The authority set out the governing principles for appointments and its procedures in statements of practice and candidate information booklets which are publicly available. Copies have been sent to the committee for its information. Since this function was given to the authority in January this year, three assistant commissioners, six chief superintendents and seven superintendents have been appointed.

For other Garda ranks, the authority has several places on the promotion advisory council established by the Garda Commissioner. For civilian appointments at principal and above, we have a role in approving the numbers and job descriptions of such positions. The recruitment is the responsibility of the Commissioner and it comes back to the authority for appointment. To date, we have made five appointments ranging from principal to chief administrative officer. For Civil Service grades below principal, our only role with others, like the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, is to approve the numbers and grades.

I have been made aware in advance that the committee may have some questions about the authority’s appointments function. I know the committee will appreciate that I cannot discuss anything relating to an individual candidate. I also need to be careful not to say anything which might, even by inference, appear to relate to an individual or to prejudice any future selection processes in which the authority might be involved.

These opening remarks are intended to give the committee a flavour of three significant areas of activity for the authority. There are many more and I know the committee will have questions. However, it is important that I end by underlining that oversight is not an end in itself and it is not a game of gotcha. It is about enhancing policing performance with a view to ensuring communities are safe, the country is secure and that the people receive the best possible service from the Garda Síochána. Community confidence and trust in the Garda Síochána remains strong. That is a tribute to the work of the women and men in the Garda organisation across the country.

I thank Ms Feehily for attending the committee again. I will not ask any questions about the process for the appointment of the new Garda Commissioner that may involve identifying individuals. However, on 11 September, Ms Feehily put out a statement regarding the appointment of a new Commissioner in which she said she would be working with the Public Appointments Service and the Department over the coming weeks to agree the precise requirements for the role and to start the process. Since then we have had the statement by the chairperson of the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland stating that a Commissioner should not be appointed until after it reports. Does Ms Feehily agree with her? Has it affected the authority’s work?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Our work was not hugely advanced in any event. The first thing that struck me when I started to examine the section is that it is precise in that the Government goes to us, then to the Public Appointments Service and back to the Government. I needed to establish in the first instance, in light of material in the public domain, from commentators and so forth, whether there are any barriers which might prevent the Government at the end accepting a nomination. I have already had an engagement with the Department. I wrote to the Minister to ascertain whether there are any specific considerations which might prevent the Government accepting a nomination from us before we start. That is an important first step for us.

I became aware of the commission’s views earlier this week and I now have its chairperson’s, Ms Kathleen O’Toole, letter. My personal reaction is that she makes a useful, significant and well-considered point. I need, however, to bring the letter to the attention of my authority colleagues tomorrow when we meet to establish an authority view on her proposition. I have noted the Minister’s statement overnight that he is considering it. I would imagine the Minister will also be weighing up, as will we, the impact of a lacuna and how long it might be. There are considerations on both sides. The commission made some useful points. The authority will reflect on them and we will make our views known to the Minister.

Is it fair to say the authority has not made up its mind yet on that issue?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Yes.

The statute dealing with the appointment of a Garda Commissioner is quite detailed. Is it correct that the authority has to run a competition, whether it likes it or not?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Not only that but we have to ask the Public Appointments Service to run a competition whether we like it or not.

If the authority headhunted what it considered to be an ideal candidate to be a suitable Garda Commissioner, must it go through the charade of asking the Public Appointments Service to run a competition?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Yes.

Is that good legislation?

Ms Josephine Feehily

In the abstract, it looks sensible until one starts to figure out the practical implications of it. The authority would probably have been more comfortable with the section we have for the other ranks where it is our responsibility. There is something strange and unusual about having responsibility for a job and a statute which states we have to give it to someone else to do. That is it, however.

To be fair, the Public Appointments Service does a professional job. For many positions, it has engaged in executive search to support its selection. However, it does mean there must be a competition.

Ultimately, is the authority bound by the result of that competition?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Pretty well.

On the third report to the Minister in response to the implementation of the recommendations of the Garda Inspectorate report, I share Ms Feehily’s views that it should be seen in a positive light, as well as a negative one. The report found, however, that 50 recommendations had not been implemented and only nine had. I note from Ms Feehily’s report that this came to her attention when she asked the Garda for the strategic report on the Garda Reserve. Will Ms Feehily explain the delay she had and the process whereby she discovered this report had not been completed?

Ms Josephine Feehily

The day-to-day work on that was handled by Ms Margaret Tumelty. If I leave anything out, she should feel free to come in.

We believe the Garda Reserve is hugely important. It is a neglected and underutilised resource. In the context of the Government’s decision last year to increase the reserve to 2,000 members, it is enormously important there is a proper strategy for engaging, deploying and minding that resource. It was in the modernisation renewal plan that there would be a strategy and it was marked completed. It was fairly simple. We asked for a copy of the strategy. After considerable delay, we discovered there was no strategy.

It was not much more sophisticated than that.

To be fair to the gardaí, there was a nuance in our report in that we have a different view about what "completed" might mean. There is a sense in which they have a project management approach and when certain milestones are reached, the milestone is completed, but that is not how it presents itself; it presents itself as a task completed. We are very keen that this strategy would be finished and shared with us in order that we can then examine it.

The final issue I want to raise is the breath test report that was prepared and published by An Garda Síochána. The Policing Authority is also preparing a report into that issue. When does Ms Feehily believe that report will be published? One of the points that jumps out from assistant commissioner Michael O'Sullivan's report is why are gardaí recording negative breath tests. Is that an issue upon which Ms Feehily has reflected? Does she consider it is necessary for this information, which is not a crime statistic, to be recorded on PULSE, or will she await the report from her own consultants?

Ms Josephine Feehily

There are aspects to this. We expect to have our report in a couple of weeks and then the authority will have to consider it and decide on publication, but I expect it will not be too much longer than that. We had hoped to have it sooner but one of the jobs we asked them to do was to assess Assistant Commissioner Michael O'Sullivan's report which itself was a month behind, and, therefore, we are a bit behind. That is the first piece.

Second, regarding the negative statistics, that question goes to the heart of this whole situation. There does not seem to be an appreciation in the Garda Síochána of the importance of data for policy making. Mandatory alcohol testing on a random basis was introduced as a piece of public policy and the outcome from it - to go back to my previous life - is like random tax audits and it informs us of the state of compliance across the community. It is not about recording negative breath tests, it is about making an assessment for public policy purposes of the state of compliance across the country. If the negative tests are inflated to such an extent, it completely distorts the assessment of compliance, and that then should feed in turn to deployment decisions regarding targeted check points. It should also feed into public policy in the Road Safety Authority, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and so on. The data for this purpose is not about crime statistics, it is about informing public policy. It is also about giving members of the community the sense that they can be stopped at any time on a random basis and if they are stopped, they will have a mandatory test. Therefore it is more complex.

Ms Feehily believes they should be maintained.

Ms Josephine Feehily

Absolutely, yes.

I thank Ms Feehily for that.

I call Deputy Mick Wallace.

I thank Ms Feehily for coming into the meeting. I wanted to touch on some of the points Deputy O'Callaghan made but I note from the Policy Authority's recent report to the Minister that only nine of the 50 recommendations in the Garda Inspectorate's 2015 report, Changing Policing in Ireland, marked as complete and implemented by An Garda Síochána under former Commissioner O'Sullivan are regarded as complete by the authority. I note also that there have been long delays regarding clarification by the former Commissioner of unreliable and incorrectly reclassified homicide statistics. My understanding is that the authority continues to await clarification from An Garda Síochána and that there was further delay and frustration regarding the provision of the two recent reports around false breath tests and the wrongful convictions under the fixed charge notices. Aside from highlighting publicly these most recent issues of non-compliance and non-co-operation and bringing them to the Minister's attention - I note that Ms Feehily has emphasised the value of transparency in recent interviews - and aside from this soft power, it seems the authority has few hard independent powers or sanctions under the current legislation that can be imposed to compel compliance and co-operation and seemingly it has no function in regard to discipline.

Could Ms Feehily list for me and specify any such independent powers under the Act that are available to the authority and provide incidents where she has used them? For example, has the authority ever referred or considered referring a complaint to Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, in accordance with any of the subsections in section 102 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended? Ms Feehily might also confirm whether and when the authority has ever formally requested the assistance of the Minister or the Government by using the stronger legislative powers and sanctions available to the Minister? For example, did the authority ever recommend to the Minister, in accordance with section 25(1)(a), that the Minister issue an order, or a written directive, to compel the compliance and co-operation of the Garda Commissioner? If so, will she give details? If not, why did the authority not recommend that in light of all the above and the intense frustration and impatience of the authority, as per her press releases in the wake of the July meeting?

Did the authority ever request the Minister to provide the authority with statistical crime information regarding homicide, as section 47 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005 compels the Garda Commissioner to provide this to the Minister, but not to the authority, every three months, and even upon request?

Will Ms Feehily confirm, whether in her report to the Minister, in accordance with section 62 which must be submitted before January 2018, she will be requesting any further independent powers or compulsion, sanction and discipline functions to strengthen the effectiveness of what is currently the weak legislative capacity of the authority to independently oversee a clearly unco-operative and non-compliant police force?

Given that the Commissioner remains solely and rightly accountable to the Minister only, and not to the authority, in accordance with section 26, and given that the Government alone has the power to remove a Garda Commissioner, in accordance with section 11, although it must notify the authority in this regard if a proposed removal relates to policing, will Ms Feehily confirm if the authority ever used or considered using its power, in accordance with section 11, to recommend to the Government that the Garda Commissioner be removed, and if any discussions were held either internally in the authority or with the Department that would come within section 11? This question arises as much with respect to the conduct of the former Garda Commissioner, referred to above, and much of the language in the recent press releases issued by the Policing Authority regarding trust and confidence. It appears to reflect the threshold for removal required by section 11. If the authority did not recommend or consider recommending removal to the authority, why did it not?

Members can choose to ask individual questions, although Deputy Wallace has asked a group of questions. I hope Ms Feehily has been able to note all Deputy Wallace's questions.

Ms Josephine Feehily

If I have not-----

He will come back to you on them.

Ms Josephine Feehily

-----we can pick them up, I have no doubt. I will first take a few that can be dealt with quickly. We received the report on homicide data in the past couple of days and I will be bringing it to the authority meeting tomorrow. We now have a report.

To take the totality of our frustration at the delay, the data quality and that group of questions together, the questions relating to homicide data, the mandatory alcohol testing, MAT report and so on, I was struck by the remarks in Kathleen O'Toole's letter, which we would share, about management capacity. She references engagement with us in her letter. I am still not sure to what extent some of these issues are down to non-compliance or just poor capacity at management level. Until one could bottom that out, the question of deciding that one wanted to make any kind of approach to a Minister would not arise. We are very much at the stage of working through this; our third report was quite shrill, it is the shrillest. We were working, as I said in my opening statement, in a framework of setting targets, measuring them and saying why did they not do it, and moving along in a methodical way. We came to that report, which was quite shrill. Any consideration of what one might do next such as approaching the Minister to compel was something that would have been in the future. We certainly have not got there yet. We have discussed before the parameters of our power and I do not disagree with anything the Deputy has said in that regard.

As regards the question of the GSOC, we certainly did consider, on a number of occasions at official level, whether they were items to refer to GSOC but it emerged that the items before us, to my recollection, have all already been to GSOC and it was clear from the material that came into us that GSOC was already seized of them. Therefore, the need for a formal referral did not arise, but we certainly looked at a number of cases from that point of view to satisfy ourselves that they were already with GSOC and that we did not need to formally send them.

Those are answers to some of the questions.

The authority has yet to consider its two-year report in any detail. There is also a procedural point, in that the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland has been asked to review the whole firmament of oversight and accountability. We will make a submission to the commission on that point as well as every other point in its terms of reference. I imagine that the two-year report to the Minister and the submission to the commission will end up being a package. I am pretty certain that we will be making some observations about our powers, but we have not yet decided what they will be. I am certain that we will be making some observations about some of the recruitment confusion that I outlined in my opening statement between different processes for every level. We will be noting the accountability ambiguity - let us put it that way - that is in the legislation and needs to be attended to. However, the authority has not yet come to a view on the content of the report.

Regarding section 11, and as any oversight body would, we made sure to understand the parameters of the various sections of our Act. To that extent, we had a conversation about whether we knew what the section meant. However, the authority has never sat down for a formal consideration in a particular instance of the use of section 11.

According to section 11(1), the threshold for the removal of a Garda Commissioner is if the individual "has failed to perform the functions of the office with due diligence and effectiveness or, in the case of the Garda Commissioner, has failed to have regard to any of the matters specified in section 26(2)," including not having regard to priorities, performance targets, the policing plan, the strategy statement or the policing principles and failing to comply with a directive. According to the authority's statements at press conferences, the Commissioner failed in this regard and was not fulfilling her duties in the manner expected of her. Ms Feehily is saying that this might be a matter for the future and raised the question of whether it was down to the Commissioner, a lack of resources or the management structure, but the Commissioner was the boss. She was not haranguing the Government for more resources for this, that or the other without which she could not do her job properly. She told us that she was doing her job properly. Clearly, she was not.

I wish to touch on a point that Deputy O'Callaghan raised about the Public Appointments Service, PAS, and the authority. Public statements by the Minister and the Taoiseach give the impression that the authority will pick the new Commissioner, but my reading of the legislation - much like Deputy O'Callaghan's - is that the authority will be on the sideline. Under section 9 of the Garda Síochána Act 2005, as amended, the procedure seems to require the authority to get approval from the Government in writing before inviting the PAS to conduct a competition for the selection of the new Commissioner. Once the authority gets the Minister's approval, it agrees with the PAS the marking criteria that will be used by the interview board when the PAS conducts the competition. However, subsection (5) reads: "The Service shall provide the Authority with particulars of the experience, qualifications, training and expertise of a person whom it recommends for nomination by the Authority under subsection (1) for appointment as the Garda Commissioner." My reading of this is that the PAS provides the authority with one name only and effectively runs the competition, makes the final choice and provides that name to the authority. The authority then nominates that person to the Government, which appoints him or her formally, if it so chooses. The important body appears to be the PAS. Although the Departments of Justice and Equality and Public Expenditure and Reform each have a representative on the PAS board, the Policing Authority does not.

The authority's role in the selection of the Commissioner is minimal. If the above is accurate, the authority's role has been overplayed by the Minister and the Taoiseach. Does Ms Feehily agree with me?

In addition to confirming the authority's interpretation and understanding of the process, will Ms Feehily outline who decides who will sit on the PAS interview board? Does she have the opportunity to sit on it? Mr. Martin Fraser sat on it previously on behalf of the Government, including to select the former Commissioner. How many individuals will sit on the new board and will a simple vote among them decide the selection?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I wish to address a couple of points. To clarify, some of the Deputy's quotations about marking schemes and so on are not in the Act. I have discussed the broad shape that he described with Deputy O'Callaghan. We have significant responsibility in terms of determining the specification for the role, but Deputy Wallace is right, in that we hand the process over to the PAS to run the competition. That is what the statute says. There is no other way of interpreting it. The PAS runs the competition within the framework of its Act and determines who will sit on the selection board. However, the authority is clear, in that we would expect detailed engagement about the composition of the board and the processes that the PAS will use in order for us to be satisfied that it is a valid competition. I see this working in a collaborative way.

The Deputy mentioned the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Justice and Equality being represented on the board. Unless he is referring to the board of the PAS, no discussion of any description has taken place about the composition of an interview panel. After the letter that we received today from Ms Kathleen O'Toole, we are still a long way away from having any conversation about the composition of the interview panel. The authority's position is that we expect to be strongly represented on such an interview panel whenever it is formed. Other than that, I do not disagree with the Deputy's description of the shape of the process. It is what it is.

My final point is on Ms O'Toole's letter. Given that the Garda Inspectorate report of 2015 has outlined in wonderful detail exactly how we should run a police force, how can we justify not putting a new Commissioner in place for the best part of a year? Can Ms Feehily understand the rationale?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I have read the letter, which contains a well-presented argument. Were I a candidate, I might want to know what job was being laid out before deciding whether to apply. That is the essence of Ms O'Toole's point. On the other hand, I accept the Deputy's point. The idea of a lacuna troubles me, but the authority has yet to consider Ms O'Toole's letter. We will do so and make our views known to the Minister. I can see arguments on both sides.

I thank Ms Feehily.

Before calling Deputy Daly, I confirm that Deputies Ó Laoghaire, Chambers and Brophy and Senator Conway would like to show.

I thank Ms Feehily for attending. When we raise questions and make criticisms of the authority, they are mainly aimed at a body that was set up poorly, so its members are dealing with a flawed product.

It was built into the legislation that the authority would be reviewed after two years, with 1 January specified in the Act as the end of that period. In that context, I would be concerned if Ms Feehily does not have a clear idea already of what suggested changes will be contained in the authority's submission to the Government. Will the authority be seeking substantially more independence? How would that fit in with the new commission on policing, which seems to have come out of nowhere to take over roles - completely unnecessarily in many ways, given that the answers were already available - that are established in law? Will that create a difficulty for the authority in submitting its review? When the legislation was introduced, there were ideas about genuine independence, control over budgeting, vehicles and station openings, etc. A real policing authority should have that type of oversight. Is the authority considering ideas along those lines? How far advanced is it in that regard?

Does the authority now see the commission as an interference? I do not mean that in an aggressive way but rather in terms of the authority's ability to do that. That is my first question.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I would not want the Deputy to think that the fact I said we had not yet made up our minds meant that we had not started the work. Before the summer break we assigned several members of staff to start the process of interviewing each authority member to gather their views on each of those questions and on all the sections in the Act. This is in order that we can have a draft prepared that the authority can consider as a whole. I am quite satisfied we will both have and express views on the constraints in the Act under a number of headings. I do not quite know what those collective views are just yet.

The reason I connected this to the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland is that we must also issue a submission to that commission, so I suspect the product might serve two purposes. That is the connection I see there. I am certainly on the record as saying at the Committee of Public Accounts recently that I thought we in the authority should have a stronger role in the areas of resourcing, deployment, budgets and so forth. That is something we have said. I mentioned the other issues. Recruitment is very awkward because it is different for every rank. The ambiguity over accountability does not help. When we are considering something, we have to read the Act as a whole, and it may well be the case that the answer is not to empower us in the authority but perhaps to empower the Minister instead, and commentators have made that point. Ambiguity and confusion do not help. We will be raising points like this, but precisely how we will come down in the end is a matter on which the authority as a whole has to take a view.

I agree with Deputy Wallace with regard to the commission, by the way, as does the Policing Authority as a whole. All the reports of the inspectorate are very good but the two major reports, the one on crime investigation and the one on changing policing, together provide an enormously useful blueprint. That is why we are very rigorous about following the changing policing report and establishing whether this or that has been done. We will keep doing that, the commission notwithstanding. The commission has considerable value to add from two points of view. First, and I have found this to be true myself and I think the committee will appreciate it, the Policing Authority landed out of nowhere. It did not have the value of, for example, the Patten commission in Northern Ireland. When the authority is asked to explain why this model was chosen over any other model, it is very hard to find analysis of this other than in Oireachtas debates and speeches. It would be very useful if a body of work were carried out to set down the rationale behind the model, whatever that model might be, for policing, oversight, security and so on. There are any number of models globally, all of them valid, as it depends on the problem one is trying to solve. That would be a useful piece of work to see.

I would also very much like to see the commission address a number of big existential questions that have never really been examined. One is the policing security split and the other is the issue of democratic accountability. No analysis has been done of these questions. We also have joint policing committees of a particular type. Are they strong enough? Is that where accountability should lie? Should it be local as opposed to national? The commission could contribute real work that no one has examined to date in any kind of academic or analytical way. I am optimistic that the commission will add real value and an enhanced policy basis for some of the choices to be made with regard to policing oversight. I am also quite sure that what will emerge at the end will be a different Policing Authority, however different, but certainly different in some respects. I see the commission as having value to add in these terms.

Limited as the legislation is, I would have thought the authority could have done more in some areas and I want to home in on some of those now. The first concerns appointments and removals, picking up on Deputy Wallace's point about the Garda Commissioner and the authority's failure to recommend to the Government that she be removed. It has now been well established that keeping her in place for so long caused significant damage to the morale and functioning of the force. Does Ms Feehily believe the authority's failure in this regard contributed to that situation? Why did the authority not exercise that power when the bar had clearly been reached?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I do not necessarily accept that final point. When it comes to fair procedures, the bar for invoking any kind of power that would have an impact on a person's livelihood is enormously high. That is the first thing. The second thing is we have to read the Act as a whole, and the Garda Commissioner's personal accountability was to the Minister and not to us. Third, and the policing-security split comes into play here, I have always taken the view that that section would be more likely to be relevant to something the authority knew but no one else did. When the body that has the decision-making power has a full line of sight, not only on material around security the authority has but also on that to which the authority does not have access, the idea we would take a position where we had no direct accountability or responsibility, and where the half-picture we had was very much available to the decision-making authority, does not seem to me to fit with reading the Act as a whole. Does that make sense?

It seems a striking response when added to Ms Feehily's earlier indication that the authority does not, under the legislation, have the role to appoint the new Garda Commissioner but that that comes under the Public Appointments Service instead. The witness is now saying that what the law really means is that the authority would never recommend the removal of a Garda Commissioner. The reality is that the head of An Garda Síochána is the subject of a tribunal because what she said was not really believed by Government. It seems the authority's peer organisation in Scotland treated the issue very differently when it recommended that the Chief Constable there stand aside while an investigation was carried out. No damage was done to his reputation.

Ms Josephine Feehily

The body in Scotland has lost two chairpersons and now a chief executive. The whole environment in Scotland is quite different.

They also have quite a few positives to offer here. They probably look across at us thinking what while they may be bad, at least they are not like us.

That is Deputy Clare Daly's narrative, anyway.

This committee wrote to the Policing Authority before the summer to express our concerns with regard to promotions, which is one of the authority's central roles. The correspondence has not been acknowledged, which I find quite shocking given that it is one of the body's central briefs. It has been well established that to transform the culture inside the force, one needs to look at appointments at all levels. This point was made by Mr. Conor Brady. In that context, how much of an emphasis does the authority place on complaints in the system against people who are on promotion lists? The old Garda charter, which predates the authority and is still in place as far as I know, states that it is the duty of officers to make it known if someone on a promotion list is suspected or guilty of conduct making them unsuitable for that promotion. This committee brought some information to the authority regarding concerns over some people on that list who were also under investigation. How is this matter treated? What is the authority's situation there? The committee is aware that the authority received correspondence this week from the solicitor of one of the Garda whistleblowers asking whether the authority might have considered a situation whereby a complaint is made against an officer who is due on a promotion list. That person might be management's favoured candidate and a system would kick in that would allow that complaint to be lost or sidelined, so that if the question was asked whether that person was under investigation or the subject of any disciplinary procedure, the answer would be no, even though that might in fact technically be the case. Have the authority members considered a scenario in which the wool might be pulled over their eyes in this way? This was the issue put to the authority, particularly in the context of the seriousness of promotions with regard to shaking up how the system operates.

Ms Josephine Feehily

First, I apologise for any outstanding correspondence. I was certainly not aware of it. We received the committee's correspondence inviting us here, but I was not aware that a response was expected.

In that regard, I apologise, and if there is correspondence to be answered, we might have a word with the clerk later to clarify what is outstanding and we will deal with it.

I am quite concerned that this conversation, since it relates to specific letters which therefore relate to specific people, brings me very close to the line I flagged in my opening remarks that I might identify people by inference, so I may need the Chairman's assistance to keep me on the right side of that line.

I have been listening very carefully to the line of questioning and have heard what has been what and I can only ask that Ms Feehily-----

Ms Josephine Feehily

Do my best.

-----do what she can.

Ms Josephine Feehily

We have designed the selection system in such a way that it is intended to be blind. We were faced with a situation - I do not think Deputies and Senators would disagree with this - whereby there were fairly significant perceptions of bias and favouritism within the system. These are documented in a report by the Commission for Public Service Appointments. We therefore made a decision that the selection processes would be blind and that any clearances would come at the end. This is common practice in the public sector. We have very a detailed clearance procedure that is invoked before someone is appointed. As would be the case with any employer - this is not unique - that clearance procedure involves language like "taking references". We ask the Garda Commissioner certain questions, we ask GSOC certain questions, we review our own information and we ask certain questions. Then the Policing Authority must assess each candidate through the lens of the highest standards of fair procedure when we have gathered that information. That is the clearance process we use for all candidates at the three ranks for which we are responsible for appointment, and the fair procedures test sits across everything. That is about as far as I can go in describing how we handle, in general, the individual candidates before we decide to appoint them.

My last point was about children.

I will come back to the Deputy again if needs be but I wish to bring in other members as well.

The replies are quite lengthy and have not necessarily been responses to my questions. Perhaps that is something to bear in mind. Regarding children and the recommendations made by the special rapporteur on child protection, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, who appeared before the committee last week, he said he has had no contact from the Policing Authority, which I found astounding, particularly given that Ms Feehily said in her introductory remarks that she has highlighted the area of children. It is eight months since his report came out. He made suggestions regarding the changes that An Garda Síochána need to implement and could implement in many instances straight away. His suggestions concerned the templates, mandatory PULSE reporting and so on. How many of them have been acted on, and what level of interaction has the Policing Authority had with An Garda Síochána to make sure they have been implemented? I think he made 17 recommendations. How many have actually been implemented so far?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I first need to explain that we received Dr. Shannon's report at the very end of May, the same time as it was published. Our own work regarding children had begun very much earlier as a themed piece of work in our policing committee supported by my colleague, Ms Tumelty. In that regard, the Policing Authority at committee level had had deep engagement with the Garda regarding how children are treated as suspects and as victims. The section 12 piece was only a subset of that and was a much broader-ranging discussion. My colleagues met the Children's Rights Alliance and the Ombudsman for Children, so we had a much broader engagement. We sought an advance copy of Dr. Shannon's report but were not able to get one. That might have informed our planning earlier in the year. We got it literally the day before it was published, the same as everyone else. By then, the committee was already engaged with An Garda Síochána on the totality of its approach to working with children as victims and suspects. What we are doing now with Dr. Shannon's report is the same as what we are doing with all the other reports: we have taken the recommendations, we have built them into our performance framework and we will ask the Garda periodically what it has done about them. I know that at least one of them has been implemented. Does Ms Tumelty want to add anything to that?

Ms Margaret Tumelty

Regarding some of the issues with the PULSE system and the ability to disaggregate data, the fix for PULSE, revision 7.3, will go into place on 31 January next year. That will address some of the key issues Dr. Shannon had regarding the classification of issues, including the 31 cases which have now been reclassified. It will address the issue that resulted in the 31 cases.

Those are, as we described them here last week, and not inappropriately, the missing children. Has Deputy Daly concluded? Does she want to add a further point before we go on?

I do not mean this in a personal way, but I find it amazing that the Policing Authority cannot answer how many of the recommendations have been implemented. Some of the recommendations were quite simple - for example, the laminated card, the risk principles, the new ones that Dr. Shannon designed. The Policing Authority's brief is to oversee systems and principles, and children is a key one on which he has done the work where there would not be that level of liaison between the Policing Authority and the Garda. That is what I am finding hard to grapple in with all the questions. The same goes for the promotions. The Act makes it clear that the Policing Authority has a responsibility to keep itself informed of complaints against members of the Garda, for example, and how disciplinary procedures are being applied, but Ms Feehily seems to put a distance there as well. That is just what I am struggling with on all of the issues.

Ms Feehily may make a final comment before I move on to the next member.

Ms Josephine Feehily

Regarding the children issue, there is no question but that we are pursuing the recommendations. We have had the report for three months if August is excluded. In the meantime, we produced a fairly significant report on a whole other batch of recommendations. The other thing that needs to be said - Dr. Shannon's report acknowledges this - is that in general, the findings regarding the performance of the Garda engaging with children are reassuring. They are positive. There was no evidence of racial profiling. If I were to line up all the reports for the Policing Authority's attention that criticise the guards, it would not be a collection that screams out in terms of its volume, but we will certainly follow up on all of the recommendations.

Regarding the appointments, of course the Act requires us to keep ourselves informed of complaints in general and in particular, and we do that, but employment law, human rights law and the regulations governing appointments require us to apply the highest standards of fair procedures in our selection. Just because we do not add up or connect something specific in a detailed way that perhaps one might expect does not mean we are not mindful of complaints. The fair procedures piece regarding individuals when it comes to their livelihood is extremely high-bar, and it is well set out in law and in regulations.

Ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil leis an gCathaoirleach agus an dá ball foirne as teacht os ár gcomhair ar maidin agus na ceisteanna tromchúiseacha seo a phlé. Many of the questions I would have liked to ask have been touched on so I will just pick up on some of the specific details, firstly the appointments process for the Commissioner. What would be the timeline Ms Feehily would envision for the appointment of a new Commissioner in a case in which the Policing Authority would decide, a case in which it would be decided that the Policing Authority would need to await the conclusion of the commission on policing's work, or a case in which the decision was not to proceed? Could the witnesses give an indicative timeline as to how long the process might take in each of those circumstances?

Ms Josephine Feehily

The actual timeframe for arranging the recruitment could be as long as six months from whenever we start. The "whenever we start" part is the imponderable now, and I note that the Minister is considering the commission's letter. We are in a research phase at present so I would not have seen us starting for a couple of months anyway, even if Kathleen O'Toole's letter had not been written. We need to research the labour market and the kind of remuneration that might be accepted before we can design the job specification.

One way or another, I anticipate we will get some input from the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland because it is clear from the letter it is now developing a lens on the needs of a Commissioner's job. I do not see us starting for a couple of months and because of the time it takes to run a competition, including the executive search by the Public Appointments Service, it could take a further six months to bring a name to Government. I am not saying we are starting in a couple of months. That decision is now up in the air and the Minister will take a view on it. We will take a view fairly shortly in the authority and will convey our views to the Minister in response to Kathleen O'Toole's letter.

Is it fair to say that if we wait for the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland to report, the process could take as long as 16 or 18 months?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Yes.

In Ms Feehily's view, if that took place, would there be a danger that the pace of reform of policing could be slowed down considerably?

Ms Josephine Feehily

That is the balance that has to be considered. As I said earlier, the authority has not considered where it falls on that balance. My colleagues and I are concerned about the impact on the pace of reform. That is why I referenced the balance of Kathleen O'Toole's letter which talks about an immediate injection of capacity. Capacity injection could enhance the pace of reform anyway and so that concern about pace might be handled in another way.

Picking up on some of the questions from Deputies Clare Daly, O'Callaghan and Wallace, is it fair to say that as a result of the manner in which Ms Feehily has commented on the primary responsibility being with the Minister and the manner in which the Policing Authority's powers are outlined, the threshold at which the authority may recommend the removal of a Commissioner is almost impossibly high for the authority to meet? Is that Ms Feehily's interpretation of it? Can I also take it from some of her comments that in the context of the appointments process and some of the appointments processes for other ranks, she believes the Policing Authority's power over appointments is inadequate and it is one of the powers where she would recommend to the Minister that the Policing Authority be given full independence?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I would not go as far as to say impossibly high but I would say very high. The bar is very high. I will not go back over the rationale again. On the others, it is very uneven. We have specific responsibility to run a competition from Superintendent to Assistant Commissioner, the whole lot from start to finish and appointment. When it comes to civilians and the corresponding ranks of civilian, we are involved at the start and the end but not in the middle. The whole lot needs to be clearer and cleaner. I used the phrase "some ambiguity"; it would also be helpful to the Garda and commentators and it needs more clarity. The model chosen by policy makers is for the policy makers. From the point of view of applying it, the clearer and cleaner - and with the least ambiguity - the easier.

It is fair to say Ms Feehily is dissatisfied with the process and that she will be communicating that to the Minister?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Dissatisfied is not a word I would use. I have said publicly a number of times that the authority always knew its powers were a work in progress. The Act, very cleverly and unusually, obliged us to take a view on the adequacy of our powers by the end of year two. It was clear everyone knew there would have to be an evolution in our powers. I would not go as far as to say dissatisfied. It is only this year that the full Act was commenced so it is really only since 1 January this year we have had all of the sections commenced. As our work has progressed, our experience is showing up unevenness and awkwardness where sections hop against each other and we will be saying things about those. I am not sure we could have come to that view without going through that.

I appreciate that. I have two more matters I want to raise.

Will the Deputy ask them together, please?

There are two matters I want to raise. One is on the breath tests and one is on the fixed charge penalty notices. On the breath tests, it has been reported the Garda is examining an initial sample of some 70,000 cases in the context of discipline. Is Ms Feehily being kept abreast of the manner in which the Garda is internally investigating this matter? Does she believe there is a need for an individual garda to face disciplinary action on the issue?

On 14 September, the GRA representative suggested quite strongly that rank and file gardaí were being put under duress to exaggerate or enhance the number of false breath tests being reported. Is that a matter of concern to Ms Feehily and the Policing Authority? Does Ms Feehily agree it is a very serious allegation requiring further investigation?

The final point I want to make is on the fixed charge notices. I am aware of the process the Garda has set about. It has contacted people who received summonses and fines incorrectly. It has been reported, particularly in the Irish Examiner, that there are a number of cases of people who faced more serious consequences. The example was given of a man in County Cork who was incarcerated on foot of a false prosecution, served time in prison and consequently emigrated. That was reported in the Irish Examiner on 20 September. The same newspaper reported a case of a woman who suffered the ignominy of being arrested at her home and was sent to Limerick Prison. In the context of the process the Garda has set out, which is largely administrative, and its apology and commitment to reimburse people for the fines, does Ms Feehily believe the process is adequate, given the fact there are people who have clearly suffered far more serious consequences and would potentially have a much stronger case for more substantial compensation or redress?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I will take the questions in order. We get periodic reports from the Garda following Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan's report. The next one about what the Garda Síochána is doing about discipline is not due yet. We are aware in a general way but I am not aware in any detailed way about it. Last March the authority expressed our serious alarm and dismay about this whole issue. We saw it as an integrity and huge public confidence issue and I am struck by the fact it has connected with the public in a way that some other issues to do with the gardaí have not because it is so widespread. We never approached it from the point of view of discipline. That is not our focus. Discipline in the Garda, as in many other areas, is regulated by statute and is the responsibility of the Commissioner. From my own experience and background in HR, discipline in the context of something as widespread as this is a very tricky issue. I am not sure how it will proceed or how successful it could be.

The authority is particularly concerned about the remarks of the GRA. At one level, when I heard them my reaction was it is a pity it did not say it sooner because there was an inherent admission about the numbers which would have advanced us all a couple of months, whatever about the context. Evidence of duress would be very important to be brought forward and in that context I imagine the authority would be keen to see disciplinary action in those situations. The company we have engaged to do this work for us has invited the GRA to come and meet it. I am not sure if that has happened or if it will happen. The work schedule plans engagement with all of the staff associations, including the GRA. I agree with the Deputy that it is a serious allegation and it needs to be stood up before anything can be done about it.

The broader question of impact beyond just a conviction that can be appealed for the fixed charge notices is something the authority put on the Garda agenda as long ago as last March. We pointed out the Garda would need to think very seriously about those broader impacts on people who may have lost their livelihood or licence, and be prepared for actions that might be taken against it. I would not be at all surprised if civil actions ensued in a number of cases.

Is Ms Feehily satisfied with the process the Garda has laid out until now?

Ms Josephine Feehily

The process for handling the large-scale cases seems to be moving reasonably efficiently, but I am not aware of engagement with the individuals mentioned by the Deputy. I do not know.

I welcome Ms Feehily and her colleagues and thank her for her engagement. I listened very carefully to the answers she has given to my colleagues. I am struggling to find a word to describe the answer Ms Feehily gave to Deputy Daly in which she stated the authority would only exercise its powers to recommend the removal of a Garda Commissioner if it knew something nobody else knew. If the dogs on the street are aware of a reason to remove a Commissioner and the authority chooses not to make such a recommendation, how can this circle be squared?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I probably spoke a bit glibly. The peculiar structure of the Act as a whole means the decision-making authority, in this case the Government, is the only body with full remit with regard to the Garda Síochána, as we have only partial remit. We also have the specific provision of the Commissioner's personal accountability, which is not to the authority. The idea of the authority taking a view, when the decision-making body has full line of sight on much broader information than the authority has, to me, it does not seem we would exercise that power in these circumstances because of the limits of our responsibility and the limits of the Commissioner's accountability to us.

As it stands, the Minister is the person who makes the decision, but the Policing Authority is the organisation that is supposed to have the expertise to make the recommendation to the decision-maker.

Ms Josephine Feehily

No, it is not. That is not what it says. It is an option for the authority. The Government can make that decision any time it likes. It does not need expertise or input from the Policing Authority. Full responsibility rests with the Government. It is an optional power for us.

Is it correct that this particular element of the legislation is effectively unworkable and will never see the light of day?

Ms Josephine Feehily

It is not unworkable. I have set out a situation where it would be absolutely incumbent on the authority to make such a recommendation, which would be with regard to something we felt was not known to the person who is entitled to make the decision. As I stated to Deputy Ó Laoghaire, the bar is extremely high before one could invoke this.

I completely accept that, but I would like Ms Feehily's opinion on whether the legislation should be changed to give a far more structured role to the authority.

Ms Josephine Feehily

There is a convention about not commenting on policy.

But Ms Feehily is with the Policing Authority.

Ms Josephine Feehily

Policy makers chose this model, and the model chosen is for the authority to have certain functions while certain other functions are reserved to the Government and the Minister. There are views we should not be here at all. There are views that all responsibility should go back to the Minister. There are also views that all responsibility should be devolved. It is for the policy makers to decide where on that continuum they want oversight to take place.

I will not dwell on it much further. The legislation, as flawed and incomplete as it may be, had a role in recommending policy, in terms of the role of the Policing Authority. I suggest the convention that witnesses do not comment on policy is somewhat different for the Policing Authority.

Ms Josephine Feehily

That is fair, but the authority must come to a view by the end of the year in answering that question, and we have not yet done so. We are at the stage of gathering views from members, and when we have formed these views we will make them known, but right now we have what we have. There will always be a dilemma about where on that line the policy makers chose to locate an independent body versus the role of Government.

Moving on to the appointment of a Garda Commissioner, the process has begun and it is an extremely important appointment. It requires time to get it right. Given its importance, and the commentary Ms Feehily has given to my colleagues on the fact the Public Appointments Service is the ultimate decision-maker in terms of making a recommendation to the Government, is Ms Feehily's view that to get this absolutely right the change should be made now before the authority continues any further in the selection process? Perhaps the Government should change it now, before a new Commissioner is appointed, to get it right.

Ms Josephine Feehily

We can work with the structure that is there with the collaboration of the Public Appointments Service-----

But Ms Feehily has said to my colleagues-----

Ms Josephine Feehily

-----but I do think it would be cleaner the other way, and there is no doubt about that.

Does Ms Feehily not think the appointment of a new Commissioner is of such importance to the future of An Garda Síochána that it needs to be cleaned up now before the process starts?

Ms Josephine Feehily

That could be read in the context of Kathleen O'Toole's remarks, and state a whole lot of other stuff would need to be determined before the process kicks off. If the Minister, who is considering the commission's letter, decides to wait then there would be an opportunity for other changes to be recommended.

I am looking for Ms Feehily's clear-----

Ms Josephine Feehily

I am not sure that the process-----

It is because this is so important, I am looking for Ms Feehily's clear view on whether the system should be cleaned up, to use her phrase, before the process starts.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I am satisfied we can work with the scheme that is there on the basis it is the scheme the policy makers and the Oireachtas gave us. We can make it work.

It was Fine Gael and the Labour Party.

Ms Josephine Feehily

We have a good relationship with the Public Appointments Service and I am satisfied we can make it work.

I thank Ms Feehily for her presentation. Last year, she mentioned the co-operation and collaboration that exists between the Policing Authority and senior management in An Garda Síochána with regard to the policing plan. Will Ms Feehily provide an update? Is she satisfied with this year's plan and its implementation and with the Policing Authority's involvement in the plan last year? Has the Policing Authority changed this type of collaborative approach this year? Is Ms Feehily happy with the implementation of the plan thus far?

Ms Josephine Feehily

We have not changed our approach to collaborative work in designing the plan. Recently, we had a day-long meeting with senior gardaí to work out the parameters of next year's plan. We have done more work ourselves in advance of the collaborative meeting this year. We have gone in with better-formed views of the targets we expect the Garda to meet.

As I said last year, it was valuable that we set about developing the plan together. There was a concern last year that because we were collaboratively developing the plan we might not measure it robustly. We certainly have shown we do. We regard some elements of the plan we put in place last year as at risk and unlikely to be achieved.

How many elements?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Margaret Tumelty will reply to that.

Ms Margaret Tumelty

A number of the elements are behind-----

Ms Margaret Tumelty

The functional model of policing, for example, has not proceeded at the pace we would have liked.

Ms Margaret Tumelty

There are some areas in terms of the targets for specific crimes. Although Operation Thor in the area of burglary and robbery was very successful, there has been a rise in the incidence of assault. That is an area on which there will be a particular focus in the plan for next year. Data is a massive area as well. To return to the comments about the Shannon report, while the specific 17 recommendations might not be detailed they are encompassed in targets for next year. Data quality is a massive focus for next year's plan in terms of the ethnic profiling, the ability to disaggregate data, not just relating to children but also relating to the areas of sexual violence and domestic violence, and looking at the nuts and bolts mechanistic stuff in respect of PULSE as well as looking at the bigger stage in terms of governance and stewardship, to ensure there is larger thinking about data in terms of the cultural attitude towards it and the value it has within the organisation to inform evidence-based decision-making in resource deployment.

There are four or five areas where the witnesses feel there has not been delivery as per the prescribed timeline for this year. Is that correct?

Ms Josephine Feehily

They are certainly behind. To be fair, this was very new for the Garda. Even though the legal framework expected that there would be performance targets, there had not been. The Garda might have been a little over-ambitious in agreeing. We were very keen that we would have a basis for measuring the measures. There has been a learning along the way by the Garda as well because I do not believe it anticipated the monthly follow-ups and the checking. Perhaps the Garda was not used to it.

The strategy statement mentions implementing a performance management system beginning in the third quarter of 2016. How is that progressing?

Ms Margaret Tumelty

The training has happened in the performance learning framework. There was delay during the year and we would have persistently gone back and questioned the Garda about it.

What was the explanation for the delay?

Ms Margaret Tumelty

There was a range of issues. Some were to do with issues relating to the associations and engagement. That caused a considerable delay. Latterly, there was an issue with some of the technology around it, but it is proceeding now and it is trickling down. Everybody has received training and it is trickling down in terms of the conversation starting.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I am sorry to interrupt but I wish to comment on that. This is an enormously important piece of work. If there were a performance management system in place for members of the Garda, conversations about performance relating to mandatory alcohol checkpoints and the like should take place in a performance management and development context. Next year's plan will include a section regarding governance and stewardship and we will put very strong emphasis on ensuring that the performance management system does not slip again. It is a huge absence in any modern organisation and we are quite determined to keep our boot on it. I just wanted to connect it with the earlier conversation. It is a much better framework for a conversation about individual performance to do it in a performance management system. The absence of it means there is only one place for it which is discipline, and that is not always the right place.

The then Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, appeared before the committee before the summer recess. When we asked about the training and development budget for An Garda Síochána it was shown in the Vote for the Department of Justice and Equality that it had been reduced from €19 million to €12.7 million, an effective cut of one third this year. The Policing Authority strategy mentions that it formally reviews elements of Garda training and recruitment. Does the witness think it is possible to implement better standards in training if there is a cut of one third this year and has she brought that to the attention of the Minister? Has she engaged about that reduction this year?

Ms Margaret Tumelty

We have engaged with training this year. The authority's staff did significant research and the authority had a full-day meeting in Templemore solely devoted to training. The training deficits we see are not to do with resources. Obviously, resources are needed and we would expect the resources to be maintained. The training deficits we see include the absence of a training strategy and a serious absence of continuing professional development, CPD. In our recent quarterly report we drew attention to something that has been commented on by many commentators, the fact that a very large number of gardaí - this was in "Changing Policing in Ireland" as well - leave Templemore without being trained in blue light driving. That is not due to money. That is down to organisation of training, strategy and prioritisation. We have developed some proposals and ideas following our engagement with the Garda. We have set some of them out in public through the mechanism of the quarterly report and we are planning a further engagement particularly around CPD and the performance management piece, which we think is enormously important. Finally, we must see the code of ethics embedded at all levels in the training strategy. Throwing money at this will not fix it.

I will finish shortly but my next question relates to accountability. In the Dáil and elsewhere we hear the Government regularly speak about the Policing Authority doing X, Y and Z while in the last hour and a half we have heard the witnesses from the Policing Authority refer a great deal to the power of the Minister. Do the witnesses feel the Policing Authority is being used to outsource responsibility and accountability by the Government when perhaps, from what the witnesses said to us, it is not necessarily exercising the legislative powers it might have? Do they feel there is a circular approach here where there are so many organisations around policing now that everybody is passing the buck? Do the witnesses believe there is accountability anywhere at senior levels across all elements between the Government and the public service? For example, when Deputy Clare Daly asked about the Garda Commissioner, the witness said that the Garda Commissioner has personal accountability to the Minister, while in the legislative area there is mention of accountability links with the Policing Authority.

I have a concern that there is a circular issue here where everybody is passing the buck. We might not have a Garda Commissioner now and when we get into next year there will be a policing commission report. Will we see the substantive changes that are needed? Who will grasp the issues and take the approach to accountability that is required? Does the authority have concerns that it is being used as an additional arm of the Government, through the Government's own speech? When issues regarding the Garda are raised in the Dáil we regularly hear the Government say that it has established the Policing Authority and that the work is ongoing there. Does the authority feel that the current policing architecture matches that political speech or does it feel that it is being scapegoated or being thrown an outsourced responsibility when, perhaps, on a legislative basis it might not have that responsibility? The witnesses have mentioned throughout the day that the current legislative measure is not directly for the authority. Does Ms Feehily wish to respond to that?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I could say a number of things. Regarding the word "outsource", it certainly was outsourced in so far as the function of oversight on a daily basis, which was in the original 2005 Act, was largely moved to us. That is no different from the establishment of any statutory body. If the Deputy means "outsource" in a pejorative way, I would not accept it. We were given a job to do that was not being done. The language of the Act is clear - it is oversight. The word "accountability" is not there with regard to the authority, it is oversight. Oversight has a particular meaning and-----

As part of oversight does the authority provide accountability?

Ms Josephine Feehily

We are accountable for the exercise of our oversight.

Exactly. That is what I mean.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I am happy to account for our exercise of oversight, in that regard. I have no problem with that, but accountability of the Garda Commissioner is explicit. That is the only point I was making earlier.

In terms of what we have added, I have spoken before about something in which I really do believe, namely, the soft power of transparency. I believe that the arrival of the Policing Authority has been hugely significant both for An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice and Equality in the sense that we have set out measures in a policing plan and have measured that. We have done stuff every month. We have had public meetings and published reports. There is an evolution there that was absent in terms of rigour and follow-up. With the best will in the world, neither the Department, the Minister nor this committee will be engaging with An Garda Síochána in the way we are. I think that is the change breaker or the context changer. When we set out our work programme for this year, for example, we advised An Garda Síochána in December that we were planning to have a public meeting about roads policing in April. One can question what would have happened if we had not done that. We had already identified the issue about checkpoints and the issues around the data in our committee sessions. The evolution of transparency has been hugely beneficial and the authority has played its part in that.

We have the framework and we think we have a contribution to make within that framework. We see it as an evolving work in progress. We will have views about where it should go next. In the meantime, the code of ethics has been on the Statute Book since 2005, for example, but nothing was done. I am not saying no work was done. Lots of work was done but there was no code of ethics. Now there is a code. It might sound simple but last Friday week-----

Ms Helen Hall

It was last Friday.

Ms Josephine Feehily

Last Friday there was a group of gardaí attested in Templemore and for the first time in 95 years, they had to sign a code of ethics as part of their attestation. That is very significant. The code is available to the public, to communities and their representatives, who can wave it in front of any garda and say, "Your code of ethics says you are to behave in this particular way". One could call it outsourced, in a way, but I think we have added value, and the added value is principally in the soft powers of transparency, rigour, persistence and keeping at the oversight.

I agree with that but what about the political question? Does Ms Feehily think that in terms of the political debate, things are being thrown at the authority for which it is not responsible?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I do not think that we are being asked to do anything for which we do not have statutory responsibility. We are happy to do what the Act allows us to do, to the best of our ability. I am not going to get into the words that someone else might use.

Okay. My final question relates to the fact we do not have a Garda Commissioner at present. Last year, Ms Feehily said she noted the Garda Commissioner's personal commitment to modernisation and renewal. Does Ms Feehily regret her retirement?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Yes, I do. I think Commissioner O'Sullivan had a huge commitment to reform. There were capacity issues within An Garda Síochána, although I accept fully the point made earlier that some of those capacity issues were her responsibility to address. I accept that, but I certainly regret her retirement because her commitment and enthusiasm was huge. I have already had engagement, twice, with the acting Garda Commissioner, Mr. Ó Cualáin. We have made it clear to him, including on the day we met him about the policing plan, that a lacuna in performance was not something we would expect to see and he has assured me that An Garda Síochána does not anticipate that. We certainly intend to keep our foot on the reform agenda at the same pace.

I believe the authority has made a very valuable contribution to the development of policing. The point that Ms Feehily made about the code of ethics that new gardaí sign on graduation is important. It is work like that - the quiet work, the implementation work - that changes things, but that very often does not get the level of publicity it deserves. Such work will be to the long-term benefit of An Garda Síochána.

I would like to acknowledge one particular point made at the conclusion of Ms Feehily's opening statement. It was a particularly interesting and welcome line, namely that oversight is not a game of "Gotcha". Unfortunately, for a lot of people it is a game of "Gotcha". I also particularly liked Ms Feehily's point that the bar has to be set very high. Unfortunately, in a lot of instances, people put the bar very low when they engage in the game of "Gotcha". They seem to think that the bar can be low and I sincerely hope the Policing Authority itself does not become the next target on the "Gotcha" list, now that someone has to move on to the next target.

In response to Deputy Ó Laoghaire who asked about comments made by the GRA in terms of its acknowledgement of the scale of the issue and the inferences it drew, Ms Feehily said that the GRA would have to stand this up and that she would like the GRA to engage on it. To develop that further, if it cannot be stood up, what are the implications for the GRA and its leadership? It was a very serious allegation for a representative body to make on behalf of its members, particularly if it is not sustainable.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I would leave it to the GRA to handle its own internal affairs in that regard. One of the pieces that is becoming evident in work that the authority has engaged a firm to undertake is that there is a culture around the expectation of performance rather than specifics. Finding a directive that says there is an expectation that a number of things would be done is difficult, but a culture of expectation seems to be something the firm is likely to identify when it reports to us. It may well be that the GRA representative will be saying something similar, but I think it would not be for the authority to get involved. I have already seen reports of some internal tension around the GRA's position on this, so perhaps it would be wiser to leave it with the GRA. That said, I still believe that if it can be evidenced, it is an enormously important piece of evidence and I would still invite the GRA, if it has such evidence, to present it.

I agree that it is enormously important because it goes to the heart of the issue. The thread running through a lot of Ms Feehily's statements today is that while the former Garda Commissioner was attempting to bring in various structural reforms, there is effectively a systems failure at management level within An Garda Síochána. There seems to be a functional inability to deliver management, whether in training, in performance or in the type of standard outputs that one would expect from a management team. That links to my previous question in that I believe much of that is what led to the whole problem we faced. The GRA is going down a slightly different route and has made a very serious allegation. Does Ms Feehily agree there is a complete functional failure of management and its systems within An Garda Síochána?

Ms Josephine Feehily

Certainly we have observed an absence of what I would call a structured management framework, with internal performance numbers, following through on who is doing what and so forth. When we were setting out our own work for the year, we indicated that we were going to look at elements of governance because we have a concern that is not unrelated to the point made by Deputy Brophy. That work will be beginning shortly. We are just going to be looking at the governance across the top of the organisation because it would be a magnum opus to do the whole governance piece. We are going to look at that in a fairly objective way. I am also struck by the echoes in Ms O'Toole's letter about management capacity. I do not think she is talking about the capacity of individuals, and neither am I. I am talking about the capacity of the management system. To that extent, I do not disagree with Deputy Brophy. The other issue that comes into play is culture.

About June of last year the authority called on the Garda to conduct a culture audit, which had been recommended sometime previously by an inspectorate report. That is finally now under way. If one does not get an independent benchmark of culture then one cannot measure progress. Culture is enormously powerful in all organisations. In a disciplined force with a long tradition and its own ways of working the culture, as management books say, can eat strategy and everything else very easily. We are putting a lot of emphasis on making sure that the culture audit is not delayed. Comments about Garda culture have been made in the past by a number of commissions of investigation, a number of commentators and, indeed, the inspectorate. The Garda has been inclined to disown them. Therefore, it is very important an objective piece of work is done that involves focus groups, and input by individual members, so that we can say, "This is what you said about your culture" and then see where that takes us.

I fully accept what the chairperson has said. The Americans have an expression, when one is up to one's neck fighting alligators it is very difficult to remember one came to drain the swamp. That is why I agree with Kathleen O'Toole who made the point that if one does not put in the work in advance of the appointment of a new commissioner, he or she will find himself or herself very quickly almost back at the position as that of the last Commissioner. I know it is a difficult call for the Minister and the Policing Authority to reach a position. However, I fail to see how a candidate of quality would consider a situation where he or she has been asked to apply for a job yet simultaneously told that the job could be-----

Ms Josephine Feehily

Yes.

-----effectively gone within 12 months of his or her appointment. It would deter any candidate of substance from applying.

In that context, and in the context of management failure, I have quite a bit of support for some of the existing structure. The Public Appointments Service deals very much in the context of appointing very senior people to senior management roles. While a Garda Commissioner is needed, and I do not believe the person appointed must be a garda, what is actually needed is the appointment of a senior manager. The PAS has experience in filling such roles so a good synergy should be developed.

I have a final question for the chairperson of the authority. In the past 24 or 48 hours there has been a development of the right to strike and the views expressed on same by both the review and the Garda Representative Association. Does the authority have a view as to whether it would like to see Garda officers have the right to strike?

Ms Josephine Feehily

I have not had a chance to read the report in full because it arrived yesterday and I was pre-occupied with getting ready for today. The group engaged with me for a couple of hours one afternoon a while ago. I would have expressed the view to them, which I think is recorded in the report, that the structure that has been put in place in the legislation, which separates policing from security, could, if it was considered appropriate, provide a basis for protecting the security of the State in the context of the right to strike. That was really the question asked by the group. In terms of the big question of whether it should happen, I think the International Labour Organization, ILO, or the Council of Europe had already opined on this matter and it seemed to me at that time that the working group had a very strong piece of information. I have not read the group's rationale as to why it went from there down to a conclusion on the right to strike.

There are huge risks and concerns to public confidence if the Garda strike lightly. The security aspect is absolutely clear. In my view the security of the State does require certain essential elements of the Garda Síochána to be unable to strike and after that it is a matter of judgment. In other parts of Europe where there is more than one police service, some police services have the right to strike and some do not. It is a matter of judgment. So long as we have a unitary service it is a very difficult issue. The report, it seems to me, says one has the right to strike if one is at one's desk but not in other instances. My answer to the commission was very much around if it is a unitary service than the situation is particularly problematic. If the decision to separate happened then there might be a different way to approach the issue.

I can see what the chairperson is saying. We have a unitary service. I acknowledge that we could look at how one handles security in the context of a security service. The system that exists in other European countries was originally that the primary police service was born out of the type of structural policing that we would view as abhorrent. In many countries the police service has been sanitised over the past number of decades. The original purpose of those security services was something that we would never like here. I would never be of the view that we should split An Garda Síochána into anything like that. On that basis there is a huge reservation and I believe most people on the street would be fearful of a situation where we would be left without a police service through strike action. I thank Ms Feehily for her answers today.

I have one last speaker who has not contributed so far and Deputy Wallace has indicated that he would like to make a brief supplementary comment. If anyone else wishes to comment please say so as this is my last call. I call Senator Ó Donnghaile.

I thank Ms Feehily for her presentation. I found both of the presentations very informative but, at points, I also found them astounding. The reason I say so is exactly the same as what I said to the delegation on the last occasion. It is because of my experience, as an elected representative previously in the North, and my engagement with policing structures and policing oversight bodies that are by no means perfect but are very different. Ms Feehily mentioned in her contribution the importance and significance of transparency, with which I agree, that instils important cultural changes into any organisation. For me, while transparency is critical, the other aspect must be accountability. When we operate within a culture and ethos that has emerged over the past number of years, it does a huge disservice to the small incremental cultural changes that Ms Feehily referenced when there is not that level of political and independent democratic oversight. In terms of some of things that I have heard, I find it incomprehensible that those proactive accountability mechanisms have not yet been put in place in this State. Given that we are not operating albeit in terms of the legacy that Deputy Brophy spoke about, we do not have the same complex history that policing in the North had in terms of its transformation over the past number of years. The biggest dynamic in that change was the injection of an international and independent review from top to bottom.

Deputy Brophy mentioned that quiet work is important, which is much like the point made by Ms Feehily. I agree quiet work is very important behind the scenes, and I have been involved in some of that around some of the outstanding policing issues in the North at a community level. So, too, is big, bold, political leadership initiatives that have transformed some of the negatives. I do not say so to be glib. I appreciate that I have been on a bit more of a soapbox, rather than asking specific questions. Ms Feehily has already been asked a number of comprehensive questions. However, it was important to state that there needs to be a political transformation that empowers, emboldens and most of all enables an oversight body, like the Policing Authority, to deliver accountability and tangible results for people who expect a policing service of the highest standard in the first instance.

I have a brief question on the security aspect that Ms Feehily touched on very early in her presentation. Are there practical ways in which that aspect has impacted or inhibited the work of the Policing Authority? I mean in terms of trying to, in the authority's limited capacity, provide accountability or democratic and independent oversight.

Ms Feehily might touch on some of that, where it is appropriate, and how she foresees that being able to change moving forward.

Ms Josephine Feehily

We have had significant co-operation from the Garda Síochána in briefing us in private up to the boundaries of that security issue. We have managed to handle that line by having briefings in private on matters that could not be put in the public domain while at the same time respecting that there is a very clear line in that regard. So far, it has not become an issue.

Can I clarify? I do not mean to what extent Ms Feehily is getting information. I am wondering about that capacity of An Garda Síochána in terms of trying to balance both. Can she think of one, two, a dozen or a hundred instances where, to paraphrase, a curtain was pulled down regarding an issue that was raised in the public domain that concerns the authority around the operational day-to-day issues within An Garda Síochána. I am wondering how that may inhibit or impinge on the authority's work and oversight.

Ms Josephine Feehily

There was only one occasion where we came close to that point and we worked it out in a private briefing, with a lot of goodwill from the Garda side. The future may well bring us to that point again. For example, one of the pieces we are putting in next year's policing plan for particular focus is Brexit. It would be unusual if we did not, given the environment. Brexit has policing and security dimensions so we may well have to explore those boundaries in the course of our oversight of Garda preparation for Brexit next year and I am hoping that, with the same goodwill, we will manage. I do not believe there is any intention that the security would not be handled professionally. It is just that we might need some assurance that it is being done. I anticipate that that boundary issue could become more live for us next year in the context of our oversight of the Garda preparedness for Brexit.

We also have the irony that there is only one policing plan which we approve, and there is a chapter in it on security. It is another one of those funny things in the legislation that we will be recommending needs something done about it.

What is Ms Feehily's view in terms of the role of the policing board in the North and the fact that, ultimately, it interviews and appoints the Chief Constable? Does she look on in awe there or what is her view on that in terms of this State and how that may change?

Ms Josephine Feehily

They look in horror at some of the things we do. We have developed very close collaborative relationships with the policing board in Northern Ireland and the policing authority in Scotland, but we are all different. My horror point is that I remember when I was explaining to colleagues in Scotland that we would be appointing superintendents, they thought that was an incredibly intrusive oversight and that it should be done by the Chief Constable. Everybody has a different view. It seems to me that the model in Northern Ireland was trying to address a particular problem. It has a model that also sits within public sector oversight. The accountable officer framework in Scotland is different. The accounting officer in Northern Ireland is different, and here it is different.

It is worth looking closely at some of the elements in the Northern Ireland model and we will be suggesting that, although I am sure we do not need to suggest it to Kathleen O'Toole because she was part of the Patten team. There are other elements that probably should remain with the Chief Constable. I know they do issues to do with pensions and so on. I do not know what that has to do with policing accountability or oversight. Every country has chosen a model which is good but perhaps not perfect.

In terms of the resource it takes for us, I certainly like the lighter recruitment model they have in Northern Ireland and Scotland, which extends only to assistant commissioners, and they delegate the appointments below that to the Chief Constable, so it is different. Some elements they have I would like but they would be horrified if they had to do some elements I have to do.

I want to pick up on a few points Ms Feehily made. Ms Feehily said that we, as policy makers, gave her an authority that did not have enough powers. We would like to clarify that we did not give it to her. We introduced a different one with many more powers and Ms Feehily would be in a much stronger position if they had taken on our proposal. For the record, the Fine Gael-Labour Government gave her that one.

I was amused by Deputy Brophy's point about low bars and high bars. It is a bit like pole vaulting. Fine Gael puts it low when it suits it and high when it suits it also.

On the Public Appointments Service, PAS, board, I was making the point that there is a representative from the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Public Expenditure on the board. The Policing Authority does not have anyone on the board. I know none of the board will be sitting on the interview panel but they have the power to oversee how the interview panel is structured and how it operates. The question should have been to ask Ms Feehily if she believed the Government has actually more say than her in the selection panel?

Ms Feehily raised the code of ethics. Credit is due to her to get that across the line in December or January but I see from the minutes of the code of ethics committee on 13 March 2017 that there have been difficulties in An Garda Síochána's attitude to embedding the code, for example, where Garda documents included the code as a spoke in the wheel of a diagram of decision making rather than its centre. Nine months have passed since then but does Ms Feehily know if all gardaí have received a personal copy of the code and initial training in applying it in their daily working lives?

The Tánaiste launched it in January 2017 but she did not publicise the fact at the time that several weeks previously, the Government had chosen to quietly enact a statutory instrument, SI 639/2016 during the Christmas 2016 Dáil vacation which downgraded and seriously undermined the effect of the code of ethics. This statutory instrument confirms that breach of the code of ethics can no longer be considered a breach of the disciplinary regulations 2007. What effect does the code of ethics have now? How can compliance with it be enforced and what are the real sanctions for non-compliance?

It would seem that the conduct exposed recently regarding the falsification of the 1.5 million breath tests and the false reporting by senior management of the completion of all 50 recommendations of the Garda Inspectorate report and the apparent reclassification of the homicide figures means that there is little hope that compliance with the code could be encouraged even by way of leading by example as that conduct amounts to flagrant breaches of the first two ethical standards of the code of ethics, namely, the duty to uphold the law and honesty and integrity.

Would the chairperson consider requesting a legislative change in the two-year report when it comes out in January in accordance with the Act so that a breach of the code of ethics might again amount to a breach of the discipline regulations 2007?

Ms Josephine Feehily

On the PAS question, I do not know what day-to-day engagement there is between the members of the PAS board and the chief executive. They have their own statutory framework. The Deputy is correct about the make-up of the interview panel in that it is the responsibility of PAS, but I am quite satisfied from my previous engagement - I am around public administration a long time - that we have always managed to engage constructively in terms of how it would run competitions for me in any job I ever had, but the Deputy is correct. It takes place within its framework and under its board.

There are three or four points about the code of ethics. If I could go backwards, and I am not speaking for the authority because as I keep saying, we have not yet considered the content of our two-year report.

I would be surprised if we made the request to which the Deputy referred because it was considered very carefully, thoroughly and deliberately by the authority. I cannot remember if the Tánaiste drew attention to it at the launch but I did so in my opening remarks then where I spoke about the model chosen being one of commitment rather than compliance. I do not think one can force ethics. It is a cultural question. All modern people management and HR practices have moved from a compliance culture to a commitment culture. One must get engagement and commitment. Ethics is about what people do when no one is looking. A discipline code is no good if there is no one looking. The authority made a very conscious decision on this and we engaged widely, receiving many submissions on the matter. We had expert presentations, and a whole day of public meetings with interested bodies.

Lest I be misunderstood, the behaviour that is a breach of the code of ethics in itself may well be a breach of the discipline code. The behaviour is subject to discipline but it is not the notion that a breach of the code is subject to discipline, it is the behaviour which ought to be disciplined and that remains subject to discipline within the disciplinary regulations. That was a deliberate model chosen by the authority. The best example I can give is if someone did something that is unethical, for instance in how he or she engaged with a victim, that in itself is subject to discipline, but not because it is in the code of ethics. It is the behaviour that should be disciplined, rather than the breach of the code. I doubt we will revisit that between now and December. We only published it in January. It is specifically stated on page 5 of the code that we made that choice.

Regarding the Deputy's point about the minutes of the meeting in March, I return to my point about transparency. The fact we publish all our minutes gives an insight into the work that we are delighted to provide. I can confirm that that meeting did lead to a fairly robust engagement which has altered the model. It is no longer a spoke in a broader model, or however we wrote it in the minutes, it is a piece of work in its own right. The embedding plan is now well developed; we have not signed off on it yet. The first instalment of it was the supply of copies and the swearing that happened last Friday for the new recruits. They are approaching the embedding from both ends. There will be bespoke training for the senior team and simultaneously it will be embedded in the training for all new recruits. Gradually, it will be rolled out to groups in the middle over time. I think we have it back on track but I can assure the Deputy that we are very focussed on it.

I thank Ms Feehily.

I thank Ms Feehily and Deputy Wallace.

I have some questions myself. I am minded of Senator Conway's dogs on the street. It is apparent to me, and I think other members will concur, that there is a universal view on the situation around breath tests and the falsification of the numbers carried out, that because of its universality - it did not present in a district or region, it was right across every Garda district - that could not and would not happen unless there was some direction from on high. It is not something that happened sporadically and broke out where in the course of carrying out their duties, gardaí decided to bump up the numbers. They were clearly acting under direction. From what level of seniority could such a direction issue? At what level within An Garda Síochána must it have been known that this was happening, not after the event, but either through initiation or while it was being conducted? That has given rise to serious concerns about the operations of An Garda Síochána relating to the question of breath tests and other matters. It is very serious.

Ms Feehily's report is currently under construction but it is not only Senator Conway's dogs on the street, of which I must be one, who are concerned but also the spokesperson for the Garda Representative Association who, in what was certainly an unusual interview, put it firmly on the record on behalf of the GRA that its members were directed. I know that we are all concerned, and the committee has spoken of this collectively and individually on the matter. It is a very serious matter. I believe, and say so as chair of this committee, that knowledge of this went to the very top and not after its exposure but as it was in train. I would like Ms Feehily to comment on that.

My second and last question is as follows. The special rapporteur on child protection, Dr. Geoffrey Shannon, appeared before the committee last week and I have heard Ms Feehily's response. I listened very carefully to the exchange with members. I cannot quote back exactly as she replied, but to paraphrase, she said that in January Dr. Shannon had signed off on the audit that the Garda Síochána had commissioned him to carry out in relation to section 12 of the Childcare Act 1991. I appreciate that the report was presented to the authority not by Dr. Shannon but presumably by the office of the Garda Commissioner last May, so Ms Feehily would not have had the same time as others to examine it. Ms Feehily indicated that amidst everything else which was presenting at that time, that audit was not the number 1 priority to be addressed. Nevertheless, the importance of this report cannot be relegated. Last week, Dr. Shannon very clearly conveyed to the committee that the PULSE system, as it currently functions, is unfit for purpose in terms of data recording and ensuring that there is a proper record of all instances where section 12 powers are used. They are huge powers. We referred to the 31 cases during earlier exchanges but the inadequacies of the PULSE system were referred to and applied across the several hundred cases which were under Dr. Shannon's scrutiny in the period he was examining the system.

Is it the case that there is so much presenting at the moment? If there was not, I would have expected that the Policing Authority from May to now, the end of September, would have taken appropriate steps. As a former spokesperson on children, and some of my colleagues here have held similar responsibilities in the past, I am greatly concerned that the report's audit and findings on the PULSE system is not being acted on with the speed with which it should and must. Is it the case that the Policing Authority as currently resourced is feeling the weight of all that is now presenting vis-à-vis the Garda Síochána and that sadly, as a consequence, this very important report and its findings is not getting the attention and action it deserves? I ask Ms Feehily to reply to both parts.

Ms Josephine Feehily

I may have given the wrong impression regarding the children. My remarks simply related to it as a report, and were that overall it is a very positive and reassuring report.

In regard to individual members' disposition, we accept that.

Ms Josephine Feehily

Precisely. It is in respect of the behaviour of gardaí, their disposition and the way they approach their responsibilities under section 12. I thought that was to their credit.

The themes in the report were themes the authority was already engaged with. We did not sit down and say "today we are doing Dr. Shannon's report". For example, as long ago as probably last November in public session we were asking the gardaí about their application of children first guidelines and we commented negatively on the incomplete training of Garda members for interviewing children. We had been coming at themes that are echoed in Dr. Shannon's report starting at the end of last year.

The question about PULSE sits in our work on data quality. He is absolutely correct that there are deficiencies in the data on PULSE. We have been dealing with that as a data theme for over a year. PULSE is an acronym but it is a piece of technology. The data deficiencies are to do with what is put on PULSE. Sometimes PULSE is used as a catch-all term but most of the data quality issues that we have noticed, and which it seems to me Dr. Shannon is outing, have to do with the quality of the information that is put into the system. If I gave the impression that we are not exercised about those issues it is simply that in our work they have been under way for some time under the headings of engagement with children and data quality. In respect of the specific set of recommendations, we have placed Dr. Shannon's report on the agenda for our public meeting tomorrow to get a progress report from the gardaí on each of those. We are very mindful of the content and I am sorry if I gave a different impression but we did not do it through the lens of the report but through the themes of children and data quality. In that regard we very much share his concerns. We also did it through the lens of training.

In respect of the alcohol tests, as I indicated earlier, the work is well advanced and the sense we are getting from the company doing the work for us is that it is likely to report that there was an implicit expectation in connection with breath tests rather than an explicit direction. It is difficult to imagine an organisation having such a discrepancy in numbers without knowledge existing throughout the organisation. It is difficult to conceive that there would not have been knowledge at various levels throughout the organisation. To return to the point I made when I was discussing managerial capacity with Deputy Brophy, and whether this data mattered that I discussed with Deputy O'Callaghan, I have a sense that it is not an organisation that looks at numbers and says if we do this many breath tests, and we have this many gardaí and there are only this many people with licences and that is the managerial capacity point. I suspect we will get indications from Crowe Horwath of a belief throughout the organisation that certain performance was expected but it is unlikely to find a directive or a direction. I still think the contribution from the Garda Representative Association, GRA, if it can produce evidence of it, will help us to close that circle. I have a thing in my head that someday somebody put 2 million breath tests on a website without saying hold on, there are not that many driving licences. There is not that way of thinking.

There will be much incredulity if the fine line is between implicit expectation as against explicit direction and if that is the last word on this matter.

Ms Josephine Feehily

We will see when we have the report and the authority will make its own views known, based on the research that is done. There may be other indicators that we can rely on to support a view one way or the other.

I thank Ms Feehily and I thank the members for their participation, and Ms Hall and Ms Tomelty for their engagement with us this morning.

The committee will suspend for one minute before going into private session to deal with housekeeping matters, and there are some important issues to be discussed. I would appreciate if the members would stay with us.

Sitting suspended at 11.15 a.m. and resumed in private session at 11.17 a.m.
The joint committee adjourned at 11.54 a.m. until 9 a.m. on Wednesday, 4 October 2017.
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