I don’t know who’ll blink: but I do know something is VERY wrong in the Justice Department
FOR over 14 years, I had the honour of being minister in a number of government departments. I found all of these to be very well run and responsive to crises as they inevitably cropped up from time to time. None more so than the Department of Justice.
It was a rollercoaster over the three years I was there. I found I had to be on call at any time of the day or night, because something was always happening.
I quickly realised that, unlike most of my previous ministerial experience, issues could arise totally out of the blue, which required immediate attention.
I regarded myself as lucky that I was surrounded by extremely diligent and able senior officials, who were a great source of counsel to me. My actual office, unlike in other departments, resembled a busy day on Grafton Street.
Officials would rush in bringing word about the latest crisis.
It could be, as happened in my case, a prison riot; an ongoing robbery or tiger kidnapping; a criminal wrongly out on the street; a paedophile being let out of jail, having served their sentence; or a Garda raid on the home of a serving member of the judiciary suspected of deception – to name but a few. And that doesn’t include the constant monitoring of paramilitary and terrorist activity.
From day one, I made it clear to my senior officials that I wanted to be immediately informed of issues arising, and that I was available at any time, day or night, even during holidays. Obviously, I was conscious of the fact that I had to rely on the judgment of the officials as to whether or not the issue was one that should be immediately brought to the attention of the minister.
ISTRESSED that they should always err on the side of caution, in that respect. I adopted the same modus operandi with the Garda Commissioner and his senior officials. Having a legal background was, in my view, a huge help to me in my decision-making. Despite many crises during my time, I was lucky as justice minister that nothing major blew up in my face, or that of the government. On all major issues, I made it my business to, when appropriate, inform the Taoiseach in order to ensure that he was not caught unawares.
Whatever has happened in the Department of Justice since I left in 2011 saddens me. I cannot understand how things have gone so awry. I often remarked to people close to me that the officials in the department could ‘hear the grass grow’. But, over the last number of years, the department has been involved in one crisis after another, interlinked with the Garda, leading to the ending of many illustrious ministerial and public servant careers, with maybe more to come. I wonder has the recent turn of events something to do with a lack of trust between some of the main players. For instance, I cannot even begin to conceive how a formal statutory letter from the commissioner to the then minister for justice, Alan Shatter, could go unnoticed for a fortnight in his office. In my time, the Garda commissioner would have been on to me, hotfoot, to inform me of the letter’s existence.
The events of the last week involving who knew what and when regarding the legal strategy in the Maurice McCabe case, are all the more surprising, given the fact that the justice system has lurched from crisis to crisis for the last few years over this issue.
I would have thought that those involved would have been on high alert about any relevant issue brought to their attention. Of course, given the fact that a tribunal is inquiring into this issue, people had to be careful.
But, from a political point of view, it surprises me that some of the main players were caught like rabbits in the headlights.
There are two big issues arising from this week’s events. Firstly, given all the guarantees by leading members of the Government that whistleblowers, and especially Sergeant Maurice McCabe, will be protected, why did Frances Fitzgerald not indicate, via her officials, to the commissioner that to adopt the type of strategy, as indicated in the email, against Sgt McCabe was flying in the face of the public pronouncements of the Government.
Secondly, at least two senior ministers allowed days to pass before telling the Taoiseach of the existence of the dynamite email.
Despite efforts by Leo Varadkar and others to blame officials in the Department of Justice, these two problems are purely political in nature. Varadkar, when he was in another ministry, annoyed a lot of people – including his Cabinet colleague Alan Shatter, the then justice minister – when he said the department was ‘not fit for purpose’. A number of years have now passed, and neither he nor his colleagues seem to have done anything to cure what they saw wrong with it.
My experience tells me that when a senior politician tries to deflect blame onto officials, they would want to be on very solid ground, or else their stance may come back to haunt them.
The motion of no confidence means the Tánaiste’s political career hangs by a thread. From my years in Fianna Fáil, I can say there is no great stomach in their ranks to take out Fitzgerald, who is very well regarded across the political divide. But politics is a cruel game.
Varadkar’s mettle will be well tested. Does he encourage Fitzgerald to step aside, in the interests of sustaining this weak minority Government? When a leading politician falls on their sword, the political wolves tend to rush to their next quarry. If Fitzgerald goes, will the focus turn to the Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, who has not covered himself in glory by sitting on the information for more than a week before he told his boss?
MICHEÁL Martin is between a rock and a hard place. Once Sinn Féin put down the motion of no confidence in the Tánaiste, Fianna Fáil could only go one way. If he hadn’t adopted a tough attitude, his own judgment and backbone would have been questioned. He previously backed down when Varadkar insisted on proceeding with the appointment of former attorney general Máire Whelan to the Court of Appeal, much to the annoyance of many of his troops. Now that his close ally, Jim O’Callaghan, has crossed the line, clearly on Martin’s behalf, there is no going back.
One way or the other, Martin will have to get his political pound of flesh. Over the next few days, it will be a case of who blinks first.