asked the Minister for Justice the name and date of assignment of the senior Garda officer which he stated in October 1977 he would arrange to have assigned to the investigation of specific complaints against members of the Garda Síochána.
6.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Garda Síochána.
asked the Minister for Justice the reason for the delay in the appointment of a senior Garda officer to afford priority to the investigation of complaints of Garda ill-treatment of suspects, as stated by him in October 1977.
With the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 and 6 together.
The undertaking that I gave in regard to the assignment of a senior Garda officer to investigate specific complaints was an undertaking limited to those complaints that had been made to Amnesty International and that were referred to in a report produced by that organisation. It had nothing to do with the investigation of any future complaints. That is quite clear not only from the context of the relevant sentence in my statement but also from the fact that the portion of my statement in which the relevant sentence appeared was clearly headed: "Investigation of past incidents". The statement dealt separately with the matter of safeguards for the future.
If either Deputy would like to have a copy of my statement, I shall be happy to send him one on request.
In the event, none of the allegations that had been mentioned by Amnesty International was subsequently made the subject of a specific complaint and accordingly the question of the assignment of an officer to investigate such a complaint has not arisen.
Subject to taking up the Minister's offer of studying the fine print of his statement and making the comment that not alone have I been misled but that the public were misled, am I to take it that no Garda officer was assigned to investigate any complaint either prior to October or subsequent to October?
I reject the Deputy's charge that the public were misled by my statement. If the Deputy waits until he sees the statement he will not have to study it for fine print but will see that what I have said today is clearly spelt out and that there was no question of misleading anybody at any time.
Could I ask the Minister to deal with the balance of the question?
I do not think it arises.
With regard to misleading the public, that is a matter of comment and I will not pursue it.
It is a matter of fact.
Is it clear that the senior Garda officer has never been appointed to do the work it was suggested he would do in October 1977?
Clearly the Deputy is misinformed because of the fact that he has not read the statement. The statement issued by me last October ran to over four pages and related to a report by Amnesty International in which it was alleged that some members or groups of members of the Garda Síochána had engaged in systematic ill-treatment of suspects in cases which were known to Amnesty but were not identified by them.
The statement on page one said the Government had decided to deal with the matter in two ways. First, the statement said, as regards the future it had been decided to appoint a special committee. Secondly, as regards past events—and I emphasise the words "past events" which are a direct quotation from my statement—the statement said it had been decided to make special arrangements whereby such allegations from identifiable people would be speedily investigated and submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The statement then went on to expand these two points in turn.
Paragraph 3 dealt with the first point, namely the setting up of the committee and, for additional clarity was headed "Questions of Safeguards for the Future". Paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 dealt with the second point, namely, the particular allegations which had been made by Amnesty and, for additional clarity, those paragraphs were headed "Investigation of Past Incidents". Again I emphasise the words "past incidents". Right in the middle of that section of the statement the reference to the assignment of a senior officer appears.
What goes before it and what comes after it show beyond any question that it related only to Amnesty's allegations and, if there were any doubt, which there is not, the heading alone would show it could not be meant to apply to future complaints. Anybody who wants to tear the words "specific complaints" from the context of the remarks before and after them, should logically claim they mean any specific complaint, irrespective of its subject matter, such as a complaint by somebody that his house was broken into, or even a complaint about, say, the colour scheme in a local Garda station.
What became of the complaints made by Amnesty? Were they not investigated?
That is a separate question.
I think I have more than adequately covered the points raised by the Deputy. I suggest to the Deputy that he should study in full the statement issued by me, the statement to which I have referred briefly.
Apparently the specific complaints have not been investigated. Is that the situation?
In relation to the Amnesty complaints, were the persons concerned identified by the Department, or by the Garda, and were the complaints investigated?
Amnesty were invited to submit complaints for examination——
(Cavan-Monaghan): And they did not.
They did not submit any and, therefore, there was not any investigation.
Could I ask the Minister——
A last supplementary. We have spent a long time on this question.
——if he initiated any investigation into complaints of ill-treatment by the Garda which he himself made when in Opposition?
I made no specific complaints against the Garda at any time during my period in Opposition as spokesman for my party.
Would the Minister not agree that he made general references to the operations within the Garda and to what he described as a Heavy Gang, and that he made general insinuations in this House about the treatment of prisoners in custody? When he became the responsible Minister, did he at any time institute any form of investigation into his own allegations of mistreatment by the Garda?
I suggest the Deputy should put down a specific question for answer by me on the matters he has just raised.
Question No. 7.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Is it not a fact that there was no substance whatever in the allegations made by Amnesty?
That does not arise.
(Cavan-Monaghan): It follows.
It may follow but it does not arise.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Is it not a fact that there was no substance whatever in them?
7.
asked the Minister for Justice the changes he proposes to make in the regulations governing the interrogation of suspects in custody and the methods of obtaining evidence.
I would refer the Deputy to my reply to Question No. 31 on 27 April in which I dealt generally with the question of legislative proposals and also my reply to Question No. 30 on 14 February in which I indicated that an examination of areas of the criminal code relative to the investigation of crime and the law of evidence is being carried out with a view to seeing whether—and if so what —changes can and ought to be made, consistent with the preservation of the legitimate rights of all concerned. The examination referred to is still in progress and will of course take account of the recommendations of the committee chaired by Judge Barra Ó Brian whose report was made to the Government on 13 April. With regard to that report I may say that, while the preliminary comments of the Garda authorities have been received, more detailed observations are awaited from them and will need to be carefully studied before I, and in due course the Government, can form any conclusions in the matter.
Is it the intention of the Government to publish the report of the Barra Ó Briain committee?
The Government will be making a decision on that in the very near future.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Is it a fact that the Ó Briain commission were set up to investigate or to report on incidents arising out of the report of Amnesty International?
No, that is not so. The Deputy is completely wrong.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Could the Minister tell us why they were set up?
If the Deputy requires information on that matter I will gladly supply it to him if he puts down a question.
(Cavan-Monaghan): I would be glad if the Minister would tell me now. Of course they were.
They were not.