THE COMMISISONERS OF the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission says that he and his two fellow commissioners are going nowhere.

Speaking today at the launch of the GSOC annual report, Simon O’Brien said that he, Carmel Foley and Kieran Fitzgerald would not be heeding the call from rank-and-file gardaí for them to quit.

Garda Representative Association (GRA) members in Dublin last week said that they had “lost all confidence” in the trio and that they should step down immediately.

“We’re not resigning, we believe that we are discharging an important function,” O’Brien said.

Speaking of the resignation of Deputy Director Ray Leonard and Leonard’s subsequent criticism of the organisation in a submission to the Oireachtas, O’Brien said that the organisation “does not discuss staff members”. He did add that “people are entitled to divergent views” and said that the Commission would consider its role going forward.

“We’re looking at what happened in the last seven years since our establishment and will happen in the next seven years.”

Leonard had criticised the structure of GSOC, but Foley said that having multiple commissioners is used in many countries as well as other Irish organisations.

Garda Relations

Overall, O’Brien said that relations between GSOC and the gardaí were improving.

“We can report encouraging signs in our relationship with An Garda Síochána where we had problems with exchange of information.

“We used to get around three in ten requests for information on time, there is now eight of ten on time.”

O’Brien said that he had a “good relationship” with the new Garda Commissioner. He could not say if the drop in referrals of incidents from the previous Commissioner Martin Callinan to GSOC was down to tensions between the two.

Read: GSOC received 2,027 complaints last year