The lesson we must learn from emails

IT is little short of astonishing that an email sent by the then Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan to former justice minister Frances Fitzgerald effectively tried to influence a statement by the minister to the Dáil.

In May 2016, Ms O’Sullivan said the minister should tell the Dáil that at no point did her legal team say that Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe should be accused of malice in his revelations, and that the minister also should express her full confidence in the commissioner.

This was not laid out in broad terms, but instead an exact suggested text was supplied.

In our democracy, Garda commissioners are appointed by, and answerable to, ministers for justice. The minister then is supposed to oversee the work of the commissioner and of the Garda Síochána in general. The notion that the person who is overseen should be giving chapter and verse to the overseer is utterly extraordinary.

To function properly, the Dáil can deal only with facts. It is the home of accountability, and every word that is entered on the record must be truthful. The very idea that a Garda commissioner thought of influencing what might appear on that record is profoundly troubling, and it also betrays something fundamentally fractured in the hierarchy between minister and commissioner.

As it happens, Ms Fitzgerald did not acquiesce to the request in the email and the proposed text never was read out, but not every minister would be so careful to avoid being compromised.

What we must learn from this shoddy exchange is simple: justice ministers must establish from the very first day that they have no loyalty to anyone but the people they serve. And Garda commissioners must know that under no circumstances should they ever attempt to put words in to the minister’s mouth.