Icy relations between gardaI and Ombudsman

Relations between the force and the body set up to guard the Gardai have always been frosty, writes Michael Brennan.

Toxic. Dysfunctional. Strained. These are just some of the descriptions of the relationship between the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) and the force of 13,000 Gardaiwhich it has to oversee.

GSOC is never going to have ''best buddy status with the gardai, given that it has secured convictions against 18 of them and sent a total of 150 files to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

But the revelation that GSOC suspected members of ...