How long can Garda chief cling on?
GARDA Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan was rapidly losing political support last night, yet Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald refused to take action against her. Earlier Ms Fitzgerald described the Garda revelations of major blunders in road traffic enforcement as ‘appalling and staggering’.
Both Fianna Fáil and Labour yesterday said they would withdraw their support for the Commissioner if there was not a ‘full and prompt explanation’ of the breath tests scandal.
In the double scandal, it emerged that the number of roadside drinkdrive breath tests were inflated by almost one million; and almost 15,000 people were wrongfully prosecuted for traffic offences, even though they were never given a chance to pay a fixed-charge notice – or fine – first. Gardaí will now have to go to court to ask judges to overturn these prosecutions, and the taxpayer could face a compensation bill of tens of millions of euro.
The Justice Minister spoke to the Commissioner by telephone for up to 15 minutes yesterday, after which she indicated she would not take any further steps.
In a statement, Ms Fitzgerald said the Commissioner had outlined how both errors would be tackled.
The minister said: ‘With regard to the fixed-charged notice issues, An Garda Síochána has outlined how the serious errors will be addressed. I have raised these issues with the Garda Commissioner and the chairperson of the Policing Authority and have outlined my very serious concern.
‘The chairperson of the Policing Authority, Josephine Feehily, has confirmed that the authority will continue to examine these matters. The reason that I prioritised and set up the authority was to shine a light on and examine issues such as these.
‘In relation to the mandatory alcohol testing, solutions have been put in place and the Commissioner has advised me that she will take all steps necessary to ensure that this cannot reoccur.
‘I have made it clear to the Commissioner that the practices that allowed this misreporting to happen within An Garda Síochána over many years need to be fully addressed and the new systems that she has put in place will need to be robust, tested and verified in the time ahead.’
However, Fianna Fáil Justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan told RTÉ his party would withdraw support if there was not a ‘full and prompt explanation’ of what had actually gone on.
‘If we don’t get a proper and thorough explanation as to how come 14,700 wrongful convictions occurred in the district courts… we won’t have confidence in the Garda Síochána or in the Garda Commissioner,’ Mr O’Callaghan declared.
And the Labour Party and others also demanded to hear from the Garda chief.
Former minister and Labour leader Brendan Howlin said new management was needed in the Garda, ‘and that will mean a change of commissioner’.
Solidarity TDs – formerly the Anti-Austerity Alliance – demanded her resignation.
A senior Fianna Fáil source said last night that the party wouldn’t go as far as to try and table a motion in the Dáil that would pressure the Commissioner to leave. The source said: ‘It would simply be a statement that we don’t have confidence. It is not the job of members of the Oireachtas to force the resignation of a Garda Commissioner.’
Another declared: ‘There are many questions to be answered by both the Commissioner and minister. Did they even meet to discuss this whole issue? And we will have to get satisfactory answers. And also, when was Police Authority informed and by whom.’
Under law, only the Government can sack a Garda Commissioner.
Paul Murphy of Solidarity said: ‘The Minister for Justice should call in the Commissioner immediately and demand her resignation, not just over this issue but because it became clear a long time ago that the tops of the gardaí are rotten to the core.’
‘The fabrication of breath tests by the gardaí needs to be fully explained. Was this some kind of systems failure or was there a diktat from the top or culture in the gardaí to increase their figures and detection rates?’ he asked.
Independent TD Clare Daly said: ‘Sadly, what we have heard from the minister is just another mantra. What the minister didn’t say was when she was aware of this information. It is Keystone Kops stuff. The Commissioner and the hierarchy has lost the confidence of the ranks, and chaos is prevailing. There had to be a limit and some accountability.’ Resignation was part of the answer, she said.
‘I outlined my very serious concern’
OVER a period of at least five years, it appears, gardaí across the country systematically lied about the number of breath tests they were conducting.
In effect, for every genuine test that was conducted, a second one was recorded which had not taken place. Around a million breath tests were ultimately wrongly recorded as having been performed.
The gravity of this scandal seems to have escaped Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and, indeed, the Government. Gardaí across the country told lies – and either their bosses were complicit in those lies or were all too incompetent to realise they were being routinely lied to.
Yes, the Justice Minister yesterday described the falsification of breath test statistics as ‘staggering and appalling’ but she also made it clear that, beyond having a few stern words with Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan, no further action is being taken.
You might say the Garda chief was let off with a slap on the wrist, but the truth is she didn’t even get that!
Nor, of course, is this rampant deceit the only recent scandal within the gardaí.
We know that for years, senior gardaí quashed penalty points for friends and relatives.
Yet when attempts were made to bring this practice to light, the whistleblowers concerned were smeared as ‘disgusting’ by the then Garda commissioner, Martin Callinan. Beside him was his then deputy, Nóirín O’Sullivan.
We know that after Ms O’Sullivan became Garda Commissioner, the force’s lawyers said they were planning to attack one whistleblower’s credibility – though that was later ascribed to a misunderstanding by the legal team of the commissioner’s instructions. We also know that the gardaí have simply failed to send out almost 15,000 penalty notices to motorists, meaning that those people had to go to court where many received levels of fines and penalty points that were substantially higher than if they had been allowed simply to pay a fine.
Their convictions will now be quashed, and they will have to be compensated – not by the gardaí responsible, but by taxpayers.
So we have lies, cover-ups, smears and incompetence on an industrial scale – much of it happening on Nóirín O’Sullivan’s watch as Garda Commissioner, and all while she was a very senior member of the force.
Meanwhile, of course, she is facing a judicial tribunal into allegations – which she denies – that she was personally party to the smearing of a garda whistleblower.
We said yesterday in these columns that what was required was a wholescale management clear-out at the top of An Garda Síochána. That clearly remains the case.
The question now is a simple one: why will the Justice Minister not take decisive action to save the reputation of the force? Set aside the smear allegations; is it not enough that gardaí were inventing breath test statistics on a vast scale?
Or that they were routinely failing to perform a basic administrative task, exposing taxpayers to huge compensation bill?
What exactly would have to happen within the force for the Justice Minister to accept that a change is needed?
It seems highly unlikely the Garda Commissioner can survive long. The longer the Justice Minister stands by her, the more likely it is that she will be dragged down too – and possibly her party’s electoral hopes with her.
That, though, is a matter for Mrs Fitzgerald and the Fine Gael party; the real disaster would be that the reputation of An Garda Síochána would go with them.
For the force’s sake, if no other, the Justice Minister should reflect – and then act before it is too late.