Garda examining attendance of Gsoc investigator at Hutch acquittal party

Gardaí are working to establish if the alleged attendance of a Garda ombudsman investigator at a party for gangland figure Gerard Hutch was “unbelievably poor judgment” or something more serious.

The man, who had a lengthy career as a police officer overseas before joining the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc), told colleagues late last week that he had attended the party held to celebrate the acquittal of Mr Hutch for the murder of David Byrne during the 2016 Regency Hotel attack.

He resigned on Friday when he was told an investigation into the matter was being launched.

The man, who has worked for Gsoc for several years, was coming to the end of his career. He had worked for Gsoc on the inquiry into the death, by suicide, of Det Supt Colm Fox, who led the Garda inquiry into the Regency Hotel attack.

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Gsoc has launched its own investigation into the matter and Minister for Justice Simon Harris has demanded a report.

Initial indications are that the Gsoc investigator did attend the party. It is understood he knows a female member of the Hutch family as they live close to each other and it was she who invited him along.

A Garda spokesman said it had been alerted to the matter by Gsoc and that it was carrying out its own assessment. “An Garda Síochána has no further comment at this time,” he added.

A garda source said the main focus was determining if the man’s presence at the party results from an inappropriately close relationship with the Hutch family and if there had been an intelligence breach.

Another security source also raised concerns of potential blackmail. “It’s possible criminals may seek to use knowledge of his association with the family, even if it was relatively innocent, to blackmail him into providing information.”

However, nothing has emerged yet to suggest the man’s attendance had been anything more than an “unbelievably poor judgment”, they said. “Even if it was inappropriate, it’s not at all clear there’s any criminal offence here,” another source said.

The Garda Representative Association (GRA) and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI), which between them represent the vast majority of gardaí, have called for an independent investigation into the matter.

AGSI general secretary Antoinette Cunningham said she would be writing to the Minister to seek an urgent meeting about the matter. “I think it takes us back to the question of who oversees Gsoc. Who watches the watchdog?”

GRA president Brendan O’Connor told RTÉ radio the man’s alleged attendance at the party was “highly inappropriate”

“This raises many fundamental questions about the operation of Gsoc and concerns that the Garda Representative Association have had from its inception,” he said. The matter is expected to be raised at the GRA annual conference this week in Co Mayo.

The party took place at a property in Dublin’s north inner city just hours Mr Hutch’s acquittal.

The investigator who resigned told colleagues he had been at the same gathering as Hutch and some members of his family. When senior officials in Gsoc informed him an inquiry was being established to investigate what he had said, and that his phone would need to be surrendered for examination, he resigned.