The only meaningful change that has taken place in the Garda Síochána and in its culture has been the appointment of a new commissioner, the Independent TD for Wexford Mick Wallace has said.
Mr Wallace was responding to the report on penalty points based on a new dossier submitted by Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe. It showed that inappropriate cancellation of fixed notice penalties for driving continued to occur even after the original controversy had become an issue of national public importance, and the commissioner had introduced the new centralised cancellations policy.
Independent scrutineers
He said the latest report underlined the need for a commission of investigation into the penalty points controversy and also the need for independent scrutineers to make the assessment of whether fixed notice penalties should be cancelled.
The report, details of which were leaked to RTÉ yesterday, showed that six senior gardaí continued to cancel points outside their own areas. This was in breach of policy and came despite a direction that such practices should cease.
The audit, which was conducted with co-operation from Sgt McCabe, examined 16,000 penalty points, including those which had been cancelled after the new centralised policy had been put in place.
In all, 660 cancellations were deemed to require further consideration and analysis.
It identifies nine cases where senior officers cancelled points and seven more instances where points were cancelled on questionable grounds, even after Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan introduced new procedures last June.
The report has made 20 recommendations that will ensure that inappropriate cancellations do not occur and that the system itself is scrupulously independent and beyond reproach into the future. That includes far more detailed reasons on why a fixed notice penalty is being cancelled, as well as scrutiny of any previous cancellation that might have been made to that individual driver.
‘Serious indiscipline’
Mr Wallace told The Irish Times that it was evident there was still "serious indiscipline in the Garda Síochana and Nóirín O'Sullivan does not seem to have a handle on it".
"Nothing has changed from Alan Shatter and Martin Callinan's time. [Minister for Justice] Frances Fitzgerald is very good at PR but has not done anything about it."
He said the 20 recommendations made were not new and many were a rehash of those in earlier reports.
“The system is broken. The days of allowing gardaí to terminate any notices, those days should be gone. If there is termination it should be done by an independent authority,” he said.
Mr Wallace pointed out that to date there have been seven reports into what he called a scandal yet none had been followed up by meaningful action.
“We have a new commissioner but nothing else has changed,” he said.
