Former minister for justice Alan Shatter has called for the Garda Ombudsman (GSOC) commissioners to be sacked. He also called for the report into the allegations of ‘bugging’ of its offices to be published in full.

Mr Shatter said it was “unacceptable” and “contrary to the public interest that GSOC commissioners remain in place” when the issues surrounding the alleged surveillance of GSOC’s offices and the leaking of information to the Sunday Times newspaper remained unresolved.

The former minister accused the agency of seeking to “cover up and keep secret a disturbing level of incompetence and failure to comply with their statutory obligations”.

Mr Shatter was forced to resign in the wake of controversies surrounding GSOC and the Garda penalty points controversy.

Speaking in the Dáil he called for for the GSOC report into the controversy to be published and claimed that when allegations of Garda failure have to be investigated by the ombudsman, “to do so with credibility GSOC must be above reproach. It clearly is not.”

Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald told her predecessor she had asked the Garda Ombudsman to consider publishing “in the public interest” its report into the leak of confidential information into the alleged surveillance of its offices.

Ms Fitzgerald said she had received the report into the leaking of information to the Sunday Times newspaper but that the Ombudsman Commission stressed to her their intention not to publish the report because it contained “personal data which they said was impossible to redact effectively”.

She told Mr Shatter during topical issues in the Dáil that she had made it clear from the outset that “I believe that as much information as possible on the outcome of this inquiry should be put into the public domain in the interests of transparency”.

Mr Fitzgerald said she fully respected the Commission’s statutory independence, she had asked the organisation and the senior counsel who conducted a fact-finding investigation on the issue, to now consider publishing the report in the public interest.

She said there was a “huge public information in ensuring that as much information as possible is made public consistent with the legal rights of those involved”.

Mr Shatter said however that it was unacceptable not to publish the report or “that it be edited into incoherence before publication. There should be full transparency and accountability and the report should be published in full”.

The Dáil should not “leave matters as they are” and it was “not acceptable to do so in the context of the additional powers being conferred on GSOC by new legislation”, Mr Shatter said.

It was also not “tenable that the GSOC commissioners remain in office nor is it acceptable that the matter of the leak now be abandoned”.