O’Sullivan strongly defends her position under questioning

Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has been subjected to detailed, and at times abrasive, questioning by the members of the Oireachtas Justice Committee.

It has been a mixed bag for her in terms of performance.

She has strongly defended her own position, although both she and her senior colleagues have been exposed - and forcefully - on the shortcomings in the manner in which they responded to the crises on fixed penalty points, and more seriously, on breathalysers.

The Commissioner has deferred a lot of specific questions on details on the mistakes to her two colleagues with responsibility in the area; Deputy Commissioner John Twomey and Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn.

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Both at times have struggled to explain their positions. The commissioner in contrast, has been contained and fluid in her responses.

O’Sullivan’s opening statement was short. Her key point was that mistakes were made and that they were addressed as part of a major programme of reform.

There were more frank admissions of failure than before at the hearing, which is chaired by Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin of Sinn Féin.

At worst wrongdoing

She accepted some gardaí had exaggerated their figures. She accepted that at worst it might be wrongdoing, at best it was incompetence.

“It is organisationally shameful and will be seen to be shameful by the public.”

She also signalled, not for the first time, that such bad practices might not be confined to traffic offences but might emerge in other areas.

When Mick Wallace asked specifically about what areas she was referring to, she said nothing specific had come to light as yet.

She used an analogy of turning over every stone to uncover what lay beneath.

A theme of the questioning has been the slow and tardy nature in which this problem was identified and resolved. Jim O’Callaghan of Fianna Fail asked why it had taken between 2014 and March of this year for the true nature of it to be disclosed.

He also questioned the senior gardaí about why the Garda waited so long (until March this year) to access the data from the Medical Bureau of Road Safety data, which showed a discrepancy of 1 million between its figures and the Garda’s, when it Bureau had alerted it to the problem for so long. O’Callaghan wonder was the flurry created by a report in The Irish Times on February 20th, outlining the discrepancy in the breath test figures.

O’Sullivan also conceded the failure to alert the Policing Authority at an earlier stage was an “oversight”. Mr Twomey later said a letter had been drafted but, for some reason, had not been sent.

In her questioning Clare Daly challenged the absolute confirmation given by Gardai that the fixed penalty points issue had been resolved.

This problem had emerged when people got summonsed to court because they had failed to pay fines on fixed penalty notices. It emerged they had never got the fixed penalty notice in the first instance.

Ms Daly said in December she had received a summons for failing to pay a fixed penalty fine and was adamant she had not received it. She said that others in Naas Court had experienced the same problem.

If Ms O’Sullivan expected some comfort from Fine Gael, which continues to express confidence in her, it was not immediately apparent at the hearing.

Its TD for Dublin South West Colm Brophy asked was it acceptable that an audit of breath tests which commended in 2014 had yet to be completed?

He closely questioned the gardaí on how many people had been deployed in the various audits that had been conducted, and criticised the delays and the numbers deployed.

‘Administratively sloppy’

To his colleague Alan Farrell, O’Sullivan accepted it was “administratively sloppy”.

She gave a strong response to Wexford deputy Wallace who said confidence had been eroded in her, and she had been in charge during a long series of crises and controversies.

She said that since becoming Commissioner she had undertaken the most comprehensive reform of the force in the history of the State, with some 1,400 recommendations based on 11 Inspectorate reports and 43 other reports.

She said that she was able to show “demonstrable” change in the force, its openness and transparency and methods, since then.

But committee members returned again and again to the exaggerated figures and what lay behind them.

What has exercised them so far is that there was possible wrongdoing, or bad practice, by gardaí (some of which might constitute offences) that was not just happening at an individual level but systemically.

Because the review is ongoing, neither she nor her colleagues were in a position to shed any light on it.

So the niggling questions continue to persist as the hearing itself continues.