The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) broadly welcomes the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill, (PSCS Bill). This Bill introduces some welcome reforms, in line with recommendations by the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland (CoFPI). ICCL fully supports the key recommendation of the CoFPI that An Garda Siochana, (AGS), must be transformed from a police force to a community focused police service with human rights as its “purpose and foundation”.
This Bill introduces important organisational and structural reforms recommended by CoFPI. In particular, ICCL welcomes newly strengthened oversight bodies, including the creation of an Independent Examiner for National Security Legislation, and reforms to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission, to be renamed the Office of the Police Ombudsman.
However, ICCL considers that the opportunity to create robust oversight mechanisms meeting international standards of best practice will be lost without some key amendments to the Bill. The new Independent Security Examiner must have access to all relevant information and its primary function must be to assess whether security legislation is being used in a manner compatible with Ireland’s human rights obligations.
This briefing highlights a series of key observations and changes we would like to see in the Bill.