US officer involved in Commissioner’s appointment insists no conflict

The high-ranking US police officer asked to lead the review of An Garda Síochána has said that her role on the interview panel that appointed Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan does not present a conflict of interest.

Kathleen O’Toole, the former head of the Garda Inspectorate and current chief of police in Seattle, was one of a four-member interview panel that selected Ms O’Sullivan as the commissioner in 2014.

She was asked this week by Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald to lead the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland.

The Department of Justice, responding to questions submitted to Ms O’Toole in the US, said that she anticipated that her work on the commission would be “a systemic review, not focused on particular individuals”.

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“Ms O’Toole stands on her reputation as an objective, principled individual and as a straight shooter who calls things as she sees them,” said a spokesman for the department.

Originally from Massachusetts, Ms O’Toole served as a police officer in Boston, rising through the ranks to become the city’s first female police commissioner.

She was a member of the Patten Commission, which examined policing reform in Northern Ireland following the Belfast Agreement in 1998 and recommended that the Royal Ulster Constabulary be replaced by the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

She was chief inspector of the Garda Inspectorate from 2006 and 2012 and has served as chief of police of the Seattle Police Department since.