Garda chief says ‘no evidence’ Gmail use harmed security

Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan has said there was no evidence that her use of a private email account to send messages relating to her work had compromised the security of the State or even her communications.

Invited by the chair of the Policing Authority Josephine Feehily to assure its members and the public that no breach of security had occurred, Ms O'Sullivan stressed she took the matter seriously.

“Over the weekend a newspaper reported on use of commercial email services in the organisation,” she said.

“I just want, at this point, to put on record that I am very conscious of my obligations to protect national security and policing operations and would under no circumstances use any system which would allow them be compromised.

“An Garda Síochána has strong security controls on the use and access to Garda IT systems. Our systems are secure.

“No evidence exists suggesting they have been compromised.”

On the issue of resources, the Commissioner said a large number of critical Garda vacancies remained despite the pledge this week by Government to promote 11 officers into key posts.

In her opening remarks to a public hearing of the Policing Authority in Dublin this afternoon, she said there remained critical vacancies in both the Garda ranks and civilian posts at the top of the force.

As well as the current vacancies, Ms O’Sullivan added some 14 senior posts would become vacant in the first half of next year as senior officers retired.

However, she welcomed the Government approving the increasing of civilian staff working for the Garda by 500 and looked forward to fill those posts and bringing in new expertise in the months ahead.

The Garda’s civilian chief administration officer Joseph Nugent insisted there was nothing unusual about the use by the Garda of Gmail accounts.

“I can confirm that Gmail is used by An Garda Síochána... on devices supplied by An Garda Síochána and looked after by An Garda Síochána,” he told the Policing Authority hearing.

He also said because the accounts were set up, controlled and maintained by the Garda, the use of a Gmail account did not circumvent Freedom of Information requests, for example.

However, he conceded the supply of relevant material from Gmail accounts would have to be volunteered by the individual Garda member who owned the account when a request for information was received.

And Mr Nugent added Garda members could not log onto their Garda Gmail accounts in, for example, internet cafés. It was also “quite a step” and “a difficult piece” to take information or documents from the Garda’s system of Gmail accounts for switching to private IT infrastructure or devices.

He had not seen the Gmail accounts being used for sending sensitive information, as had been suggested in recent media reports.

He added the Gmail accounts were often needed to initially set up new phones and were also of use when Garda members used them for making presentations, for example.

However, while there had recently been a warning to Garda members about keeping secure their Gmail accounts linked to their work, more work needed to be done around policies and procedures.