The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has called for an independent inquiry into the GSOC bugging revelations.
The council says the inquiry is needed to "staunch the erosion of public trust" in the independence and effectiveness of Ireland's police accountability systems.
The ICCL says public trust in our national authorities has been badly shaken by a week of claims and counter-claims.
Director Mark Kelly claims GSOC appears not to have told the Minister for Justice its full reasons for launching a spying sweep and, in turn, the Minister may have been editorial with the truth before the Dail.
And he says it strains credulity for the Garda Commissioner to suggest that the possibility of unauthorised spying by members of An Garda Síochána can have been definitively eliminated in the space of a couple of days.
The ICCL says any independent inquiry should examine a number of issues including what truly prompted the GSOC security sweep? AND Who deployed the technology "only available to Government agencies" in the vicinity of the GSOC offices last year?
The council says it will only be possible for GSOC to focus on its important work once public confidence in the integrity of our police accountability structures has been restored by the findings of an independent inquiry.
