Taylor ‘exaggerated treatment by gardaí’ But Wallace tells tribunal he believes him on smears

FORMER garda press officer David Taylor probably exaggerated how badly he was treated by gardaí for disclosing an alleged smear campaign against a whistleblower, independent TD Mick Wallace has told the Disclosures Tribunal.

‘Given everything we have learned since, it’s probably fair to say that he was embellishing how he was being treated,’ Mr Wallace said.

The Wexford deputy told the tribunal he believes there was an orchestrated campaign to undermine garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

The tribunal is looking at allegations by Garda Superintendent David Taylor that he was directed when he was Garda press officer to smear Sergeant McCabe.

Former commissioners Martin Suspicions: Mick Wallace Callinan and Nóirín O’Sullivan deny there was any smear campaign.

Mr Wallace told the tribunal he met Sergeant McCabe about revelations made by Mr Taylor on October 3, 2016.

He said the sergeant told him that Mr Taylor had confirmed what he had suspected, that there was a campaign to discredit him because of his efforts to expose Garda malpractices.

Mr Wallace and fellow TD Clare Daly subsequently met Mr Taylor. Mr Wallace said he got the impression that phone text messages were used as part of the campaign to undermine Sergeant McCabe.

Mr Taylor ‘did feel he was being unfairly treated. He did feel there were trumped-up charges against him,’ Mr Wallace said. He found Mr Taylor remorseful and genuine, and ‘in a bad place mentally’.

He has since come to believe Mr Taylor may have been exaggerating, the tribunal heard.

Mr Wallace said he believed Mr Taylor had told more of the truth in their initial meeting than he had in his evidence to the tribunal.

‘He did seem genuinely sorry that he had done serious damage to Maurice McCabe and his family. That was the impression that we got and we felt he was being sincere,’ Mr Wallace said.

‘He may have embellished how he was treated himself, but I actually believed what he was saying in relation to the orchestrated campaign against Maurice,’ Mr Wallace said.

Mr Wallace said he did not believe Mr Taylor ‘would have put his head above the parapet’ if he had not ‘run foul of the authorities himself ’.

Mr Wallace said that, in hindsight, Mr Taylor ‘was being a bit economical with the truth’.

‘I’d say there had never been a judge in the history of the State [that was] told so many lies,’ Mr Wallace said of tribunal chairman Judge Peter Charleton.

Mr Wallace said he met Sergeant McCabe around 2012 and had contacts with him since. ‘For a good part of two years we were ridiculed and rubbished for anything we said. We were told we were barking up the wrong tree,’ Mr Wallace said.

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‘Confirmed there was a campaign’