Kathleen M. O'Toole is the Chief Inspector of the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, set up to audit Ireland's national police force and report to Ireland's Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform on changes to improve efficiency in line with best international practices.

From 2004-2006, O’Toole served as the first female police commissioner of Boston, Mass. As police commissioner, O'Toole was active in the international police community as a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the IACP's Committee on Terrorism, the Police Executive Research Forum and the FBI National Executive Institute Associates.

The Boston Police Department, the oldest municipal policy agency in the United States, consists of nearly 3,000 personnel, with an annual budget of over $250 million. It is the largest municipal police force in the New England region and the 14th largest in the U.S.

O'Toole has spent more than twenty-five years in the public safety arena.  She rose through the ranks of the Boston, Metropolitan, and State Police organizations, including the position as Lieutenant Colonel of Massachusetts State Police from 1992 to 1994.

From 1994 to 1998 she served as Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety and in that capacity was responsible for twenty agencies, more than 10,000 employees and an annual operating budget exceeding $1 billion.

In 1998, O'Toole was selected to serve on the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland (The Patten Commission) which developed a new framework for policing and security in the North.

In 1999, she chaired the Boston Fire Department Review Commission which proposed sweeping recommendations for reform.

During her career, O'Toole has also held senior positions at Digital Equipment, Boston College, and GPC/O'Neill and Associates. In addition, she provided services to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division as an expert witness on "profiling" cases.  She was also president and founder of O'Toole Associates LLC, an international consulting firm with offices in Boston and Dublin.

Kathleen O'Toole is a graduate of Boston College and the New England School of Law. She was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1982. She is married with one daughter.