Labour to press for Garda ombudsman

The Labour Party is to seek Dβil approval for legislation to establish a Garda ombudsman.

The Labour Party is to seek Dβil approval for legislation to establish a Garda ombudsman.

The party leader, Mr Ruair∅ Quinn, said the current Garda complaints procedure was in crisis and had to be changed.

It was not acceptable, he said, that the people of this State should have a less accountable police force than the people of Northern Ireland, but that was exactly what was going to happen.

"In this State our policing statute, particularly in relation to accountability, has remained little different from the foundation of An Garda S∅ochβna," he said.

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The party's justice spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, said that as society was becoming increasingly transparent the Garda S∅ochβna also needed to follow the same route.

A prerequisite for public confidence in any police force, he said, was an effective independent procedure for the investigation of complaints on those occasions where members of the force transgress against acceptable standards.

The seriousness of the reports about Garda corruption in Donegal could not be over-estimated, he said. Over a year had passed since the report by an Assistant Garda Commissioner was completed and the delay was "no longer tenable", said Mr Howlin.

"This case has the capacity to besmirch the reputation of the garda∅ across the country. It warrants swifter action that it is receiving." Mr Quinn said if what occurred in Abbeylara had occurred in the North the Police Ombudsman there would have been one of the first on the scene.