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FRANCES FITZGERALD HAS said that at least seven people at GSOC had access to the information about possible bugging in its offices that was leaked to the media.
The justice minister noted that the Garda Ombudsman has launched an independent inquiry into the leak.
Last night, the Cooke Report into the alleged bugging of GSOC was released. It found no evidence to support any claims of surveillance by members of an Garda Síochána.
Retired High Court Judge John Cooke was tasked with overseeing the inquiry after an article published in the Sunday Times on 9 February last asserted that the Ombudsman’s offices were under surveillance.
Fitzgerald said that people would have to “wait and see” what the results of the investigation into the leak are, adding that GSOC needed to ”get to the root of what actually happened”.
Speaking on Today with Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio 1, the minister reiterated that she had confidence in the “individuals running GSOC” but noted: “There are lessons to be learned”.
Earlier today GSOC’s chairman Simon O’Brien told Morning Ireland that he did not believe the organisation had jumped the gun in relation to matter as suggested in the report, saying there were “credible threats that we had to investigate”.
Fitzgerald noted that the Ombudsman felt “vulnerable” for a “variety of reasons” and said she accepted O’Brien’s “perception” of the issue.
She called on GSOC to “reflect on the report”, saying she looked forward to “their detailed response”.
Fitzgerald said that the body was an “important institution that has to be seen to be working correctly”.
We need t make sure that the protocols between GSOC and an Garda Síochána are working correctly … There is bridge-building to be done.
When Seán O’Rourke brought up the assertion allegedly made by junior minister Alex White last week that Enda Kenny had fired former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, Fitzgerlad defended the Taoiseach.
“He has already given an outline to the Dáil of the seriousness in which he views this … The Tasoiseach has never said that the Commissioner should go.”
She added that the Fennelly inquiry into the taping of phone calls in Garda stations would clarify the events surrounding Callinan’s departure in March.
Fitzgerald, who served as the Minister for Children until last month, said that “inevitably there will be some crossover” between the Magdalene Laundries and mother-and-baby homes.
She noted that the upcoming inquiry into the homes, prompted by the discovery of a mass grave of almost 800 babies in Tuam, Co Galway, was about unravelling “a half century, you could say, of appalling behaviour … and how women in Ireland were treated at that time”.
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What is the makeup of this independent inquiry? Who Polices the Police Police?
The Coast Guard?
Batman??
@Sandbag. This must be the comment of the week. I’m in tears laughing!
Some joke – GSOC leaking like a sieve and giving out about being bugged.
Frances fitzgerald…. minister of knowing F all…..
I doubt you know anything about her at all.
Sorry Frances, you have already proven that you couldn’t care less in the baby grave scandal.
All these old guard need to go.
As does people’s attitude in this country Sargon , like yours making little of a man drowning in Limerick , is her attitude much different then yours
How come nobody asked who broke the law to break the Ming penalty points story or the Clare Daly whiskey story? What about the Anglo tapes nobody asked where they came from either.
Haven’t Ming, Daly & Wallace been doing that? Does your righteous indignation with that leak not extend to this one?
The law was broken by someone to release the story of each of these scandals. If you don’t care who breaks the law fine by me but I do
“Ireland’s human rights watchdog, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has described the 65-page Cooke report into the possible bugging of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), released by the Government late this evening (10 June 2014), as “an exercise in smoke and mirrors”.
“What is striking, however, is that the Judge appears to have made absolutely no independent investigative attempt to establish objectively whether or not surveillance of GSOC by An Garda Síochána had been sought or authorised. It seems that not a single member of An Garda Síochána or the Defence Forces was interviewed; no examination of the records kept of the use of surveillance equipment by police or military intelligence services took place, nor were the “oversight” activities of the “designated judges” under the relevant legislation subject to any form of review”, Mr Kelly continued.
“The Judge’s exclusive focus on whether or not GSOC’s levels of suspicion regarding surveillance were well-founded entirely side-steps the core question of whether or not any agency of the state sought or obtained permission to engage in surveillance of our independent police complaints authority. A report that merely revisits a range of more or less plausible explanations for communications anomalies, without even attempting to compare them with information readily available to the police and military intelligence services, can only be qualified as an exercise in smoke and mirrors”, Mr Kelly concluded.
FRANCES FITZGERALD HAS said that GSOC has identified at least seven people who could have leaked information about possible bugging in their offices to the media.
And how many people work in the office?
Seven
Yet you only made an adverse comment about the garda leak.
Ah, that’s grand! Can I have a tea and biscuits while we “wait and see”?…
I find all this a joke..so she reckons that she can do what the other minister couldn’t without above her interfering …do they think we are stupid!and when she goes sure won’t she be looked after!!!they only do any good when a wrong is published …
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