Garda chief plans pilot video-taping project for stations

The Garda Commissioner, Mr Noel Conroy, has proposed that the Government should introduce a pilot programme that would allow for the recording on video of everyone entering a number of Garda stations.

The proposal would also see recording equipment covering everyone who had access to both interview rooms and detention cells.

The recommendation forms part of the Commissioner's response to the Department of Justice to a highly critical Prime Time programme into the gardaí which was broadcast at the beginning of the year.

The programme contained a number of serious allegations of disciplinary breaches by members of the gardaí, including claims of assault and perjury.

The Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, said earlier in the week that he had received a report from the Commissioner in respect of all matters featured in the broadcast.

He said the Commissioner had reviewed the investigation of each case highlighted in the programme and proposed a number of measures with regard to the systems, practices and procedures within the Garda Síochána to ensure the existence of adequate safeguard mechanisms for the mutual benefit of members of the public and the force.

"One recommendation of the Commissioner in this regard is to carry out an initial pilot project for the installation of stand-alone, digital audio-visual recording systems in two Garda stations.

"The pilot project is to access the various issues involved and it will cover reception areas and areas from which access can be gained to interview rooms and detention cells", the Minister said.

The Minister told the Dáil on Wednesday that he would need to consider the report carefully and discuss it with the Commissioner.

Mr McDowell said allegations of serious wrongdoing by members of the gardaí, such as those made in the Prime Time programme, were of serious concern.

Last April, at the annual conference of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, Mr Conroy criticised the programme as "unbalanced and biased".