Protected disclosures to the garda ombudsman rose by more than half last year, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) received 28 disclosures in 2023, its Director of Operations Peter Whelan revealed.
This compares to 18 the year before, he told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
But the unit which handles the complaints, and consists of seven posts, is “finding it difficult” to fill two vacancies, he added.
Overall, GSOC has 23 vacancies and 163 staff, its Chairman Rory MacCabe said.
The former High Court judge pointed to a Grant Thornton report which was published last summer and recommended that at least 180 additional staff be recruited, and possibly as many as 239, depending on work flow.
Last week, the legislation to establish a new ombudsman which will replace GSOC completed its passage through the Oireachtas.
“Fiosrú will have new structures, new management and a lot more work,” Mr MacCabe said.
The agency is due to start operations in July.
“In broad terms, and over a phased period, a minimum of a doubling of our current staff complement, including a considerable increase in our complement of investigative staff, will be essential.”
Staff shortages are also slowing the first stage of processing any complaint.
There is a “backlog with admissibility complaints,” Mr Whelan said.
“We’ve had some struggles there with staff numbers.”
Read more: GSOC needs more staff and resources, committee told
Fianna Fáil TD Cormac Devlin highlighted nine cases which have been open for four to five years, and nineteen others open for three to four years.
His party colleague, Paul McAuliffe, referenced the public scandal surrounding the resignation of a GSOC investigator last year, and asked what changes had been made to recruitment processes.
The ombudsman has “a shared interest” with gardaí in both organisations introducing “ongoing vetting” for staff, Mr MacCabe responded.
He added that all cases that the investigator had been involved with were put under review.
The riots in Dublin had brought into focus a sense that gardaí were having to look over their shoulders lest they fall foul of GSOC, Deputy McAuliffe suggested.
Five complaints relating to policing that day had been made to the ombudsman with two of them having been withdrawn, the committee heard.
Mr McAuliffe asked if the commissioners were concerned that “gardaí didn’t have that freedom to respond”.
GSOC Commissioner Emily Logan pointed to research carried out in the wake of the riots by Assistant Garda Commissioner Paul Cleary.
He found that “less than 5%” of officers who had replied to a questionnaire “had a lack of confidence in the use of force”.
Ms Logan said that this is “sharply at variance from the media commentary” on the riots.
Labour’s Alan Kelly strongly disagreed.
Expressing a “deep concern” at GSOC’s track record, he said that issues underlying the “recruitment and retention issue” in the force were “manifested” in the riots.
“Gardaí were afraid to act,” he said.
