‘Taylor told me that he wanted to bring down Nóirín,’ says Callinan
DAVID Taylor had a grudge against Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan and said he would bring her down, Martin Callinan said yesterday.
The ex-Garda commissioner told of his shock when he read former press officer Taylor’s protected disclosure, accusing him of orchestrating a smear campaign against whistleblower Maurice McCabe.
‘There was no justification for it in any shape, way or form,’ he told Disclosures Tribunal chairman Peter Charleton.
He had believed he had a close professional relationship with Supt Taylor, but they were not friends. He had no sense that the press officer had a grudge against him or that there was any underlying frailty in their relationship.
Earlier this week, Supt Taylor told the tribunal that he was directed by Mr Callinan to brief journalists against Sgt McCabe, though he could not give examples of this.
Mr Callinan said: ‘Certainly, what’s emerged in evidence from Supt Taylor is beyond my comprehension, in terms of the relationship I thought we had, and the manner in which he was conducting his business on behalf of An Garda Síochána.
‘I am of the view and the belief that Supt Taylor, because of the grudge he bore against commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan, that he embarked on this story because... he had a huge grievance about being shifted from the press office to the traffic department, which he saw as a sideways move.
‘He was extremely angry and disappointed that the commissioner had moved him, and subsequently, after his arrest and suspension, he told me he believed commissioner O’Sullivan was the person who was responsible for having him arrested, and that he would bring her down. That was the expression he used.
‘So, on that basis I believed that Supt Taylor decided, in order for the story to work, that he had to involve me in the process.’
He added: ‘That’s my belief because there is no other explanation why he would say what he’s said, why he would come into this tribunal and give the evidence he gave.’
In his statement to the tribunal, he wrote: ‘I wish to state categorically that I did not direct Supt Taylor to brief the media to the effect that Sgt McCabe was motivated by malice or revenge. Nor did I direct Supt Taylor to encourage the media to write negatively about Sgt McCabe.’ He added he did not tell Supt Taylor to use historic allegations about Sgt McCabe to discredit him.
He wrote that it was ‘striking’ that Supt Taylor’s allegations were made without reference to any surrounding detail, context or circumstances. It put him in a position of being able to do little more than simply deny it.
He also denied seeing the Tusla file about Sgt McCabe in 2013, which contained a false allegation of sexual abuse.
‘I had no knowledge [of it] whatsoever,’ he said. ‘Therefore the implication that I used such information to discredit Sgt McCabe in such a way is wholly unfounded.’
Tribunal counsel Patrick Marrinan, SC asked why the 2006 allegation of sexual abuse ‘reared its ugly head’ in minutes taken from meetings attended by Mr Callinan, preparing him for his January 2014 appearance before the Public Accounts Committee when penalty points were being discussed.
He said it was not possible to control what was said at meetings. Whatever Sgt McCabe’s motivation was, his focus was on dealing with the substance of the complaints before him, he said.
He said that when then justice minister Alan Shatter asked if there was anything ‘in the background’ of Sgt McCabe, he was obliged, under the Garda Act, to tell him about the 2006 allegation, ‘that he had been involved in inappropriate contact with a child that was fully investigated, and the DPP had ruled there should be no prosecution’.
‘All I was doing was placing the facts in front of the minister at the time as I knew them,’ he said. Mr Callinan told Mr Marrinan that he did not believe Sgt Taylor was motivated by ‘mala fides’.
‘Sgt McCabe was quite entitled to make an allegation as is any member of An Garda Síochána or member of the public,’ he said.
He said: ‘I certainly did not convey to the minister that this is the catalyst for Sgt McCabe to run off making all sorts of complaints.
‘I had no intention in the wide, earthly world to do down Sgt McCabe, good, bad or indifferent, nor did I have the time to do so.’
He added that ‘if Sgt McCabe wanted to come and see me, I certainly wouldn’t be locking the door or keeping him out’.
‘I was obliged to tell Shatter’