The chairperson of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) has said that it should be taken out of the Department of Justice’s remit and allowed to operate, subject to controls, “on its own”. Disclosures unitOne of the reports outlined that Gsoc wrote to the Department in November 2016, requesting 12 extra staff for a Protected Disclosures Unit. When asked had Gsoc been able to bring any protected disclosure investigations to a satisfactory conclusion, Ms Justice Ring replied “no”. “So far, Gsoc have not provided any update on the operation of the unit,” a spokesman for the Department of Justice said. “If we are to give the priority to protected disclosures that the 2014 [Protected Disclosures] Act suggests we should then we need the people to do it and we need the avenues within An Garda Síochána to make that easy to do.”

Source: The Irish Times January 14, 2018 17:15 UTC