GARDAÍ WILL have the power to use surveillance photographs and videos of criminals planning and carrying out crimes as evidence when criminal cases go to the courts under planned legislative changes.
Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan has consulted with the Garda authorities and has instructed officials to frame legislation to give legal standing to covertly gathered evidence.
At present such material cannot be used for evidential purposes because it has no legal standing.
Mr Lenihan said gardaí already extensively used surveillance to gather evidence on criminals which he believed could lead to more convictions, particularly against known gangland figures.
Operation Anvil had been the Garda’s front line against organised crime in recent years. It had involved the gathering of evidence, surveillance, and checkpoints where criminals are intercepted. This was resource intensive and if evidence gained from photographing criminals in the commission or planning of crime were used it could be “very valuable”.
“But there’s a balance to be struck,” Mr Lenihan said. “We do not want to compromise the intelligence-gathering capacity the gardaí already have. It’s important [those techniques] are not put too much out there, in the minds and under the observation of the criminal.” The heads of the Bill should be ready for publication by the autumn.
Mr Lenihan was speaking at the annual conference of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) in Tullow, Co Carlow. Reacting to criticisms of the Garda Ombudsman Commission by the GRA, Mr Lenihan said there would always be tensions between representative associations and an independent complaints body.
He said one commission member, former Irish Times editor Conor Brady, had even recently referred to him as having “limitless wisdom” because he had not approved a request from the commission to review Garda crowd control techniques.
Mr Lenihan said the contract for the Garda’s long-mooted secure Tetra digital communications system is to be signed as early as tomorrow after the funding was given final approval by Government yesterday.
