AGSI conference:Members of the public who make vexatious or nuisance complaints about gardaí will face criminal prosecution when the new Garda Ombudsman Commission begins operating next month, it has emerged.
Ombudsman member Carmel Foley told the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) in Wexford that she and her colleagues could prepare investigative files for the Director of Public Prosecutions recommending malicious complainants be prosecuted.
"I think that's fair," she told delegates. "I think it's very easy to subvert a complaints procedure if you have an agenda yourself."
Under the current Garda Complaints Board system there is no provision for vexatious complainants to be prosecuted.
Ms Foley said the ombudsman commission would be independent and fair and would have the pursuit of truth as its only goal. "We are impartial. We are not for the guards and we are not against the guards," she said.
She believed the system of identifying wrongdoing would help prevent the wider force suffering negative publicity or being "left with a cloud hanging over it" after incidents occurred.
While the complaints board received some 1,300 complaints every year many people believed, because it used Garda members to investigate colleagues, it was not independent. She believed the ombudsman commission would be seen as independent and would attract a higher number of complaints as a result.
Any incident would be investigated once it had been reported within six months of occurring. In cases of overwhelming public interest the commission could chose to investigate any matter irrespective of when it took place.
The killing of Dubliner Derek O'Toole (24) by an off-duty garda in a traffic collision last month in Lucan, Co Dublin, could be investigated once a complaint was received. Ms Foley also said she believed many complaints would be "minor" and "routine" and that many would be resolved informally.
However, because there would only be three teams of 10 investigators in place when the commission starts work on May 9th there would be a limit to the number of investigations that could be carried out at any one time. Staff would have to prioritise.
Ms Foley said approval was currently being sought from the Department of Finance for the recruitment of a fourth team of 10 investigators. The six senior investigators already recruited to lead the three existing teams included former police officers from Australia, the UK and New Zealand. There had also been two officials from the office of Northern Ireland's Ombudsman's office as well as a former death and serious injuries investigator with the Health and Safety Authority.
Four Garda superintendents were being seconded from the force to offer assistance and to act in an advisory role. These would be with the commission for two-year periods and would never be involved in front line investigating.
Ms Foley said it was impossible to be "hard and fast" about how the Ombudsman Commission would operate but said the willingness of all members of the force to enter into the spirit of the new system was vital.