How the McCabe scandal slowly unfolded
FRANCES Fitzgerald has been dragged back into a morass she thought she had escaped from – after controversies claimed the scalps of two Garda commissioners and her predecessor as justice minister, Alan Shatter.
The Tánaiste finds herself trapped by the revelation that she was briefed on Nóirín O’Sullivan’s strategy to impugn garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe’s motivations – and thereby his character – at the O’Higgins Commission.
The means to do so involved two Garda witnesses who were expected to say to the commission – set up to investigate the internal targeting of whistleblowers within the force – that Sergeant McCabe had admitted to them that all his actions in exposing Garda wrongdoing stemmed from ill feeling towards colleagues.
These supposed admissions were allegedly made in a meeting with Sgt McCabe – but these claims lost all credibility when Sgt McCabe was able to produce a tape recording of the encounter, proving he had said no such thing.
Mr McCabe had originally expressed concerns about Garda methods in probing suspected criminal offences at Bailieboro, Co. Cavan. He submitted his suspicions of malpractice and corruption in the Cavan-Monaghan division to Garda chiefs in 2008.
Thereafter he made a number of complaints to the Confidential Recipient of Garda whistleblowing, who allegedly told him that the establishment would crush him if he crossed people. The Confidential Recipient subsequently had to resign.
The handling of penalty points in the division – and, by implication, across Ireland – became a particular flashpoint, being highlighted by Independent TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly in particular.
Lawyer Seán Guerin was appointed by the Government to conduct an independent review of Mr McCabe’s allegations in 2014. His report called for a further inquiry – and the O’Higgins Commission was set up. In the meantime, then justice minister Alan Shatter had resigned after being wrongly criticised by Mr Guerin, as subsequently found by the High Court after a case for judicial review taken by Mr Shatter. Mr Shatter now says he was pressurised to go by then-taoiseach Enda Kenny.
The O’Higgins Commission also soon discovered that the legal team acting for then Garda commissioner Noirín O’Sullivan (who had replaced early-retiring Martin Callinan) were accusing Sgt McCabe of acting out of malice. Leaked transcripts of the O’Higgins proceedings showed that a barrister for Ms O’Sullivan had been instructed to question Sgt McCabe’s motivation in bringing complaints against the force. Senior counsel for Ms O’Sullivan – who resigned in September – later told the inquiry it was an error on his part to have suggested she had ordered him to question the whistleblower’s integrity.
Frances Fitzgerald is now drawn in because she claimed she had only learned of the Garda legal strategy as justice minister at the same time as everybody else – when the transcripts were leaked last year. But it now turns out the Attorney General’s office had raised it a year earlier in a phone call to a senior official in her department before cross-examination had begun.
The recipient of this call then consulted another senior department official, and on foot of this, an email with the information was sent to Ms Fitzgerald in May 2015. The Tánaiste does not recall getting or reading this explosive email that referenced a criminal complaint against Sgt McCabe which he denied. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said yesterday Sgt McCabe denied this was what the commission row was about.
Lost all credibility when witness produced a tape