I thank the Chairman for the invitation to appear before the committee today. Members have already been introduced by the Chair to the other members of GSOC and our support staff who are here today as well.
Yesterday, the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024 was signed into law by the President. That will replace GSOC with Fiosrú, the Office of the Police Ombudsman. Fiosrú will have new structures, new management and a lot more work. A core strategic priority for us as commissioners has been to ensure, to the extent that we can, that we leave the organisation well-prepared for the challenges ahead. This has meant significant work for all of us in addition to the delivery of our current statutory functions.
While the Accounting Officer of GSOC is the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, as chair of GSOC, I, with my commission colleagues, approve GSOC’s financial statement and annual report. When Fiosrú comes into being, it will hold its own independent budgetary vote and have its own CEO and Accounting Officer. This is a welcome development. The committee will hear from the Accounting Officer, that is, the Secretary General of the Department of Justice, in a few weeks, and a representative from her Department is here today with us.
GSOC independently investigates allegations from the public of Garda misconduct, whether disciplinary or criminal. We also investigate referrals by An Garda Síochána in the case of death and serious harm, referrals from the Minister for Justice and the Policing Authority. We also investigate matters that we judge to be in the public interest. In addition, we are one of the designated bodies to which Garda members and civilian staff can make protected disclosures.
While investigations can attract significant public interest, we are, as members are aware, precluded by statute from public comment on ongoing investigations or on related matters subject to, or likely to become subject to, proceedings in the courts or in other public fora.
It is also important to be clear about the boundaries of our responsibilities. We do not discipline, suspend or prosecute gardaí. If our investigations conclude that a criminal offence may have been committed, we send a file to the DPP, who, as the State’s independent prosecuting authority, decides whether a prosecution is warranted. If a prosecution is directed, the DPP then conducts the prosecution with GSOC staff appearing, where requested, as witnesses. If our conclusion is that disciplinary misconduct has occurred, we then pass the file to the Garda Commissioner, whose responsibility it is to consider whether suspension and-or a disciplinary sanction should apply. If our conclusion is that neither criminal nor disciplinary misconduct arises, we then notify interested parties of our conclusion and close the file. Where in the course of our investigations we identify systemic issues of concern, we may issue recommendations to the Garda Commissioner. We do this on a non-statutory basis, in the spirit of pooling insight and knowledge that may improve the delivery of policing in Ireland.
In addition to our headquarters in Dublin, we have regional offices in Cork and Longford. We have investigative staff on call seven days a week, 24 hours a day, operating across the country. We receive a significant volume of complaints from members of the public, usually in the region of 2,000 per annum. In 2022, for example, we received a total of 1,826 complaints containing 3,207 separate allegations, while receiving 41 referrals from An Garda Síochána. In that year, we closed 2,301 complaints.
The delivery of our statutory functions depends on the skill and dedication of our staff. The work is complex and demanding and their diligence and persistence are exemplary. As of this week, we have a total of 163 staff along with a number of vacancies - my best guess is 23 - we are working to fill. Our budget allocation for 2022 was €13.679 million, in 2023 it was €16.67 million and this year it is €19.596 million. Increases in budget and staffing in recent years, added to organisational changes that we have been implementing, have assisted us in reducing backlogs and preparing for major institutional transition. Notwithstanding these increases, our level of resourcing remains below what we need now and significantly below what the organisation is likely to need in order that fiosrú can meet its new remit. Grant Thornton independently assessed and had a look back and a look forward at our organisation. It estimates the additional staffing we will require would be a minimum of 180 and, depending on the extent of the additional work that arises, up to 239. That is not insignificant.
Committee members will now be familiar with our observation that for the new office to succeed, significant additional support in the shape of resources and expertise will be needed. In order to better identify the new ombudsman’s needs, we commissioned an external organisational review. This helped us make a business case to the Department of Justice in which we outlined the level of resourcing in terms of funding, capacity and expertise that fiosrú will need.
Resourcing is not just about money. The Minister for Justice and her Department have been reactive to and supportive of our ongoing needs. The specialist nature of our work and the broader dynamics of the labour market today pose real ongoing challenges in finding and retaining suitably qualified staff. This is a challenge we understandably share with colleagues across the public service and Civil Service and will require workforce planning as fiosrú comes to terms with its new mandate.
We are seeking to diversify the means by which we recruit into our organisation and are identifying how better to retain the staff we already have on our books. To this end, we are in the process of procuring a partner in the third level education sector to design an accredited training programme to provide the learning and development opportunities that our staff need.
In broad terms and over a phased period, we are looking at a minimum of a doubling of our current staff complement, including a considerable increase in our complement of investigative staff. That will be essential. It is our clear aim as a commission to do everything we can to ensure that the new office of the police ombudsman can do the job that the Oireachtas mandates us to do, to which the public, Garda members and staff are entitled - human-rights-based, independent, policing oversight that promotes accountability and enhances public support for and trust in policing in Ireland.
The last time we spoke, I invited the committee to come visit us in our Dublin headquarters. I reissue that invitation today to meet the staff, listen to them and see the work they do. It is my belief that if the committee does that, it will be impressed. I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it.
