‘No government can work if Shatter wins’
Author of ‘objectionable’ report appeals court ruling
GOVERNMENTS would not be able to function if ex-minister Alan Shatter’s appeal over a report on whistleblower Maurice McCabe is allowed to stand, the Supreme Court has heard.
The report’s author Seán Guerin SC launched yesterday’s case after a lower court ruling that his findings were ‘objectionable’ and should be removed from the record.
The 336-page Guerin Report – about Mr Shatter’s handling of claims of Garda corruption by Sergeant McCabe – led to the minister’s resignation. However, it also ultimately gave rise to the O’Higgins Commission which put Mr Shatter in the clear.
Mr Guerin was represented by former Attorney General Paul Gallagher SC yesterday. He said Mr Shatter’s original case potentially ‘creates a huge impediment’ for those in Government.
He argued that the Guerin Report was simply a ‘scoping exercise’ that involved no conclusions and if someone was allowed to sue over such a report it could affect the ‘inner workclaim ings’ of government, which might have problems ‘getting anyone to express an opinion or do anything urgently’.
Many decisions in government are made ‘within a very short timeframe’, he added.
Mr Shatter’s May 2014 resignation – and the then taoiseach Enda Kenny’s decision to accept it – were ‘all consequences from political decisions and political choices’, and not linked to Mr Guerin’s report, he added. Mr Shatter, who watched the case from the back of the court yesterday, also lost his Dáil seat in the 2016 election and blamed his political downfall on the Guerin Report.
He claimed the report hampered his ‘international reputation’ and damaged his future employment prospects away from the Dáil.
His barrister Paul Sreenan SC argued that he was a ‘distinguished politician, lawyer and government minister’, but his original court action was ‘not a based on an asserted right to remain as minister’.
Rather, it was ‘a simple claim that his good name was attacked in Mr Guerin’s report’ without giving him the right to give his side of the story first.
The report had ‘gravely affected’ both his career and reputation, Mr Sreenan said.
Mr Guerin had interviewed Sergeant McCabe ‘on four separate occasions for 19 hours’, and could have ‘sought a meeting with the minister or put the criticisms to him in writing… it
‘He could have sought a meeting’
would not have taken long,’ Mr Sreenan argued.
Judge Donal O’Donnell, with judges Peter Charleton, Liam McKechnie, Elizabeth Dunne and Iseult O’Malley will give their decision at a later date.
The Government had commissioned Mr Guerin to give an initial assessment of a ‘dossier’ of claims by Sergeant McCabe comprising ten ‘sample cases’ alleging negligence, incompetence and malpractice on the part of gardaí.