Guerin: GSOC did not provide material to aid misconduct review
Senior Counsel Sean Guerin, whose report into alleged misconduct by gardaí was released this lunchtime, said he did not receive documentation from GSOC to aid his review, and was not told why until it was too late in the process.
"Unfortunately, I have not received any documentation from the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission," he writes in a letter sent with the copies of the report to Taoiseach Enda Kenny earlier this week
"I have therefore had to complete the review without reference to any such material...This is somewhat unsatisfactory, though it has not impeded the review in relation to other agencies.
"GSOC has indicated thorough its solicitors that it is willing to furnish documentation and that it has "voluminous" documentation available, but it was unwilling to release it without certain safeguards being put in place.
"While that is not unreasonable, no indication of these difficulties was given to me until the process of drafting the final report was well underway, and notwithstanding repeated requests to GSOC to furnish relevant documentation."
The 300-page report has outlined a series of failures by a number of state bodies to deal properly with allegations of Garda misconduct.
