The Garda Representative Association (GRA) is calling on the Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan to establish an independent statutory tribunal of inquiry into the handling of protected disclosures within An Garda Síochána, following this week’s RTÉ Investigates programme.
RTÉ Investigates reported that two people who handled protected disclosures made by garda whistleblowers have themselves blown the whistle, alleging that reforms introduced to protect those who speak out have been undermined by senior management.
In a statement released this evening, the GRA said that issues with the protected disclosures process was “not a new or isolated pattern” and that it was “one the Association has encountered on previous occasions in its representative work”.
“The GRA is not in a position to comment on the individual accounts given in the programme, several of which touch on matters that remain before the courts or other statutory bodies. However, the Association states plainly that what has been reported is consistent with the experience of members it has represented directly,” the statement read.
“In cases handled by this Association, members who made protected disclosures have not been interviewed in relation to the concerns they raised, and have been informed, sometimes many months after submission, that their disclosure has been placed into abeyance, with no further engagement and no indication of when, or whether, it will be progressed.
“This is not a new or isolated pattern; it is one the Association has encountered on previous occasions in its representative work.”
GRA President Niall Hodgins called for an independent tribunal and not another internal process
The GRA said it was now “questioning whether we as an Association now can, with 100% confidence, advise our members that any protected disclosures will be received with the appropriate respect and confidentiality required”.
“The Association’s position is that the pattern reported this week, years after that process concluded, warrants an independent, statutory examination, with the power to compel evidence and require candour, rather than a further internal or organisational response,” the statement concluded.
GRA President Niall Hodgins said: “Our members join An Garda Síochána to protect the public, often at real personal risk.
“When they raise a genuine safety concern in good faith, the very least they are entitled to is that it will be properly investigated, and that they will not suffer for having raised it.
“The public interest and the interests of our members point in the same direction: an independent tribunal, not another internal process.”
The GRA added that it will be writing formally to the Minister for Justice in the coming days to set out their request for an independent tribunal of inquiry in detail.
The Garda Protected Disclosures Office was set up in mid-2017 as part of reforms introduced to protect Garda whistleblowers in response to the Maurice McCabe whistleblowing scandal and the Disclosures Tribunal, which was then underway, and published its final report in 2023.