Changes promised as complaints board warns over Garda cases

The chairman of the Garda Complaints Board has warned the Government that the board is "not in a position properly to deal with its responsibilities".

The warning comes in the preface to the board's report, which predicts that the final figure for complaints made last year will be 1,400, an increase of 90 per cent since the figures first started rising in 1990.

The board's chairman, Mr Seamus MacKenna SC, states that it is "essential that the Garda Siochana (Complaints) Act, 1986 be amended".

In a statement published with the report yesterday the Department of Justice said amendments would be brought to government "at an early date". These would include allowing the board to "respond to each complaint in a fashion commensurate with the seriousness of the matter complained of".

The board would be given the power to take a more active involvement in investigations. And while gardai would still be the investigators of a complaint they could be directed by the board and required to report back to the board on progress.

"In relation to the more serious complaints it receives the board is of the opinion that direct supervision of all aspects of the investigation is required," the report says. In "exceptional" cases the board would want to supervise all aspects of the investigation.

There would also be discretion on the referral of complaints to the Director of Public Prosecutions, according to a Department of Justice source. The six-month limit by which complaints must be registered would also be dropped.

There would also be a review of efficiency to reduce delays in complaints which were unsatisfactory to both sides.

The changes would be brought forward in tandem with the implementation of the Leahy report, which recommends strengthening Garda powers, including a curtailment of the right to silence.

The board recommendations include: having the discretion to extend the six-month time limit for making a complaint, "where it is of the opinion that the complainant could not reasonably have known within the six-month period that there was a cause for complaint".

It also recommends a greater range of penalties. "In particular it is concerned with the gap between the maximum fine of four weeks' pay which can be imposed and the next penalty of requiring a member of Garda rank to resign."