NÓIRÍN ‘THE PUSHER’

FORMER Garda commissioners Martin Callinan and Nóirín O’Sullivan were behind a campaign to ‘bury’ whistleblower Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe, the Disclosures Tribunal has heard.

Sgt McCabe said ex-press officer Superintendent David Taylor told him there was a campaign to attack him, adding: ‘Lookit, I destroyed you.’

Mr Taylor said he had been ordered by Mr Callinan to send ‘thousands’ of text messages to journalists, senior gardaí and TDs. And he said he was told to always send a copy of the message to Ms O’Sullivan, then deputy commissioner, who would always reply with a one word text: ‘Perfect.’ And Sgt McCabe said Mr Taylor said to him: ‘She was the pusher, she knew everything that was going on.’

He told the tribunal: ‘She was the pusher in the campaign to discredit me, not Martin Callinan.’ Sgt McCabe said Mr Taylor had told him that the force was ‘obsessed’ by him.