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MEMBERS OF THE Garda Ombudsman Commission will appear before an Oireachtas committee this afternoon to answer questions on the developing ‘bugging’ controversy at the police watchdog body.
GSOC will be quizzed on the issue by TDs and senators from the Public Service Oversight Committee.
As well as the alleged spying claims, also on the agenda for the panel will be “operation of the new protocols providing for enhanced co-operation between the Garda Síochána and the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC)”.
Reports that the agency’s communications systems were bugged first appeared on Sunday. Justice Minisiter Alan Shatter told the Dáil yesterday, however, that there was no definitive evidence of electronic surveillance at the GSOC offices.
Shatter said he had been briefed by the Commission on last year’s sweep of their communication systems, which identified two technical anomalies, and a subsequent sweep that revealed a third potential issue.
Chairman of the agency Simon O’Brien briefed the Minister on the security sweeps on Monday, after which GSOC stated it was “satisfied that its databases were not compromised”.
Appearing on RTÉ’s Prime Time last night, GSOC commissioner Kieran Fitzgerald repeated that there was no “definitive evidence” of bugging at its Dublin headquarters but said it could not be entirely ruled out either.
He revealed that the possibility of an anomaly with a conference call phone being coincidental was “close to zero”.
“It would be lovely to be able to say we could be certain one way or the other,” he said.
Independent probe
There have been calls for a third organisation to be brought in to carry out an independent investigation into what happened, and the chairman of the committee GSOC will face today is amongst those who have been calling for such an inquiry.
Sinn Féin justice spokesman Pádraig McLochlainn said yesterday an “international body” may have to be brought in.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has also called for an independent probe, and said the Government’s focus on the issue to date had been misplaced.
“Emphasis seemed be focusing on the issue of whether or not [The Garda Ombudsman] should have referred this to the Minister,” Martin said.
He said the issue of what had happened “needs to be urgently resolved” adding that it was important the full facts came out in order to maintain public confidence in the agency.
GSOC last night rejected suggestions that chairman Simon O’Brien step down, following comments from the general secretary of garda staff body the AGSI advising that he “consider his position”.
John Redmond had said it was not acceptable that GSOC suspected a crime may have taken place and that it wasn’t reported to gardaí.
Today’s committee meeting takes place at 4pm in Leinster House Committee Room 3, and can be viewed live here.
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There was no evidence of bugging but it can’t be ruled out. In other words they haven’t a clue what’s going on. Think it’s time the security firm was brought before PAC at least they might know what they found or didn find.
It would be also interesting to know who leaked the “sexed up” story to the Sunday Times. I said a few days ago here that it all sounded a bit wishy-washy!
It simply sounds as if the security company identified potential weaknesses which needed to be addressed. But of course that is not sexy enough for some people.
Nail on the head I think McNab! Where are all the muppets this morning going on about the government level technology that was found? They swallowed the story hook, line and sinker without a shred of evidence being produced.
They can’t rule bugging out because doing would be akin to admitting they’re Muppets.
‘Appearing on RTÉ’s Prime Time last night, GSOC commissioner Kieran Fitzgerald repeated that there was no “definitive evidence” of bugging at its Dublin headquarters but said it could not be entirely ruled out either.
He revealed that the possibility of an anomaly with a conference call phone being coincidental was “close to zero”.’
GSOC don’t know whether they have been bugged, because there is no way of being 100% certain that they were bugged. I think anyone in the security industry would agree that the world has moved on a lot since the 1980s!
So why leak it to the press in the first place?
Fiachra, exactly. Wifi and ip phones dont just magically start to forward their data through a tunnel to an non irish IP. Soneone had to make this happen. Thats why this sweep was done by a non-irish company in the deadbof the night.
Anyone here looking for actual physical evidence, doesnt know anything about IT.
We don’t actually know who did leak the story, Sandbag. Could have been a member of the GSOC board, could have been the poor intern making the coffee, or it could have been the security company that did the audit. Speculating about that is a waste of time.
Interesting , that’s putting it lightly, one would imagine that would be a priority , to find one if their own, upstanding , crew , taking €50, or 100 from some jurno, to leak stories. In the point of bringing the seceurity company, before the PAC, they are ex British Army intelligence , you won’t get much from them, but god knows what they collected after being given free reign, to the most sensitive information in the country . Who ever let them foxes into the henhouse, was a fairly bright boy.
Funny, there was no problem with speculation when it came to the supposed perpetrators. I’d be amazed if GSOC have interns as well, but if they do it’s even more disturbing that highly sensitive reports were left lying around for them to see.
Could have been a lot worse Gerry. Could have let your boys do it and we know what would happen then
But you prefer Mi5 and Mi6, knowing all about you n ur buds josh, fair enough, I’d say you have your wish by now..
I think they should lump O’Brien and Fitzgerald in with Smithwick,,,,,,,,,,shure the GARDAI must have done something !!!!!!! Shure it doesn’t matter if there’s any evidence or not,,,,,,,, doesn’t even appear to be a crime here and they’re insinuating the GARDAI have done something.
Marvellous !!!!!!
Release the report to the Dail committee and that will provide full clarity over what did or did not happen.
I don’t actually think GSOC insinuated anything, actually. They didn’t file a report or make a press release until a journo working for a British paper got his hands on a sexed up version of the story (who knows where he got it from?). The one press release they DID give explicitely said that there was no evidence of Garda misconduct. Given that it was the Garda ombudsman that had been allegedly bugged, naturally everyone assumed it was the Gardaí that did it so I think that the Ombudsman’s statement was fair enough.
The Gardaí (or at least the AGSI) are the ones calling for Simon O’Brien’s head when it appears to me that he did absolutely nothing wrong!
If GSOC & this security company were the only two entities to know about the report then the info could only have come from either of them. That means one of them is either careless with sensitive info or they leak to the press.
Why the need to implicate the Gardai in their statement ‘exhonerating’ them. That was a smear in itself.
Won’t it be interesting to find out in a few years time what is really going on.
Gsoc suspects someone is listening ..
Gsoc carries out secret sweep
Gsoc spills the beans to Sunday Times.
Enda and Co go into overdrive to muddy the water
Joe Soap knows nothing but will be picking up the tab for all the messing around.
Concisely and, I believe, correctly put Paul
I want an independent inquiry and I think everyone does at this stage
This is a compete farce. Simple question; were they bugged or not?
Yes we were but shatter and co has come down on this department and half them have chickened out and want this to be over
The ombudsman could nt investigate there way out of a paper bag. They have shown this time and time again si ce they were created. They should leave investigations to people that know what they are doing and go about the day to day busness of investigating claim from the publc about garda wrong doing that does happen. They are their to serve the people of ireland not to try and arm wrestle with the garda about stuff they either make up or cant even prove actually happened. If they continue to spin mad stories to the press like this again they should be disbanded and another garda oversight organisation established. End of.
@ noibh
Ban Garda cheerleeders Ra Raing again
It would be lovely if he felt free to tells us one way or the other about the bugging that was found, but I think his hands are tied. The English company involved have not got the same problems, I’d ask them what they found.
I hope that GSOC are treated as the victims and not as the perpetrators as the government spun it.
Do victims leak stories to the press?
Victims of what? If any spinning is being done it’s the desperate attempts by GSOC to come out of this without looking like the absolute clowns that they are.
How do you know it was GSOC and not the security company that leaked the story?
Sandbag, can you not see the sense in leaking to the press if this was infact the case. No?
It could be either, but what has the company to gain by doing so? In fact, if it emerged that they were the source it would mean no further contracts from GSOC & a reputation for being untrustworthy.
Please justify GSOC’s leaking of the story to me.
@Sandbag what evidence have you that the GSOC leaked the story? None I reckon.
That fool Enda berated GSOC for not telling the MOJ when the real issue was the fact they were potentially bugged.
As I’ve said, it could only have come from one of two places; GSOC or the company. So where do you think it came from?
@ sandbag,
Diversionary tactics. Who cares who leaked it. The important thing is to get to the bottom of it
Nice to see Kieran Fitzgerald representing the interests of the GSOC. Kieran’s background is in journalism, a
profession that offers the very best in Irish society in terms of professionalism and presenting the facts as they really are.
He was a producer on the bosco show…..judging by this performance he could seamlessly take up that job again.
Touche Fluich
Brilliant. Has to be comment of the week fluich!!!
Great comment fluich ! I just find it laughable that Fitzgerald is a gsoc commissioner . No investigative experience whatsoever , he a journalist for heavens sake. Only in ireland .
Bugging is an old fashioned and specific type of spying. The database not being breached is another specific denial. What about interception of emails and use of software programs to activate video and audio devices on computer. The report from the screening company must be analyzed carefully. The journalist who broke the story said he had definite evidence the sweep was carried out because of leaked information. More in next weekend paper.
This item reminds me of an old fashioned whodunit . It was the Gardai . No! It was the minister for justice . No! It was the English ex army guys working for the debugging company. No! It was the GSOC . No! It was the Sunday Times. No! It was some criminal elements . No! It was the media.
No! It was incompetent politicians.
My own take on it is that the GSOC were either tipped off or tumbled to some attempt to subvert their investigations. They felt unable to trust either the Gardai or the minister. They went to a third party for verification. They got a report that most likely there was bugging going on ( telephone test).
They felt the best way to flush out the perpetrators was to go to a non Ireland based newspaper.
And the rest is ongoing.
Right I havnt been watching this closely, but from the bits I’ve picked up it seems the ombudsmen found evidence of bugging, distrusts the guards enough to accuse them of foul play, distrusts the government enough not to report it. In fact they seem so nervous of the system here that they look overseas to an independent firm for help investigating! Right or wrong it speaks volumes about insider opinions about our police force/justice ministry if not government as a whole, so what do they know that brought them to this? Or am I miles off?
Your first and last words hit the nail on the head.. You haven’t been following story and you are miles off
Ok so
The elephant in the room here is this… the GSOC had nobody to turn to.
Why? Because we have one Minister for both Justice and Defence.
If this was not the case and we had two separate portfolios and departments – suppose for a minute that
GSOC didn’t trust Shatter to remain confidential and to keep the information secreted from the Gardaí… then
simple, they could just go to the SEPERATE Dept of Defence to seek help and advice in the confidence that it
would remain confidential and the GS wouldnt know about it, that is just impossible now that the two
are combined and both agencies are in the control of one minister. Both agencies are the only agencies capable
of legal govt level bugging and debugging.
but its grand, because we saved a few million euros at the expense of transparency and democracy.
There’s a cover up going on with the insiders trying to bury GSOC to protect their positions . The facts are that the independent expert body that carried out the sweep of gsoc found evidence that suggested bugging took place . It is impossible to find definitive proof retrospectively due to the nature of the techniques they suspected were used . However according to gsoc the independent bodies advice was that in their opinion the chance of the anomolies found being innocent were ‘remote to zero ‘. The question is not why the minister wasn’t informed it is where these anomolies or threats came from …..I think we all know the obvious anwere to this question
Don’t waste your time you are spineless, put up or shut up
@josh Barton
Ah I see josh has continued from where he left off yesterday…. Accusing everyone who disagrees with him of being a garda!!! Paranoid much josh??!!!!
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