CALLINAN RAN A ‘CAMPAIGN OF CALUMNY’ WITH PRESS OFFICER
FORMER Garda commissioner Martin Callinan took part in a ‘campaign of calumny against Maurice McCabe’ in which he was actively aided by his press officer, Supt David Taylor, the tribunal has found. Judge Peter Charleton said Mr Callinan had worked ‘cheek by jowl’ with Supt Taylor, who claimed to be the ‘mouthpiece’ for the commissioner’s views – something the judge described as a ‘repellent task’. But the judge said other highprofile witnesses told how they had been directly approached by Mr Callinan with ‘unpleasant allegations’ about Sgt McCabe, when it appeared Supt Taylor was failing in his task of undermining the penalty points whistleblower. The witnesses told how the commissioner had described Sgt McCabe as a man ‘with psychiatric issues’, who ‘fiddles with kids’ and who ‘cannot be believed or trusted. ‘They claim that this did not happen through any intermediary, such as Superintendent David Taylor, but that the Garda Commissioner himself attacked the character of Maurice McCabe,’ the judge said.
On January 23, 2014, giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee, Commissioner Callinan referred to the process of gardaí who make a protected disclosure rather than official channels as ‘disgusting’.
On the same day, in conversation with John Deasy TD, the judge said that Martin Callinan allegedly referred to Maurice McCabe as someone that could not be ‘believed or trusted’. Judge Charleton then went on to outline negative remarks made about Mr McCabe by Mr Callinan to high-profile witnesses – Séamus McCarthy, the Comptroller and Auditor General, PAC chairman John McGuinness and RTÉ journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes. He painted Maurice McCabe to them as someone that could not be ‘believed or trusted’.
Judge Charleton concluded that Mr Callinan had seen himself as data controller of Garda information and as commander of his subordinates.
He said that when Mr Callinan discovered that Supt Taylor was a person ‘who would promise much and deliver little’, he decided to ‘step in and try and do a more effective job than his incompetent subordinate had already engaged in’.
According to the report, Mr McCarthy told the tribunal that Commissioner Callinan ‘referred to sexual offence allegations in the plural against Maurice McCabe, and that these were allegations under current investigation, as opposed to allegations which had been the subject of a previous investigation.’ despite the Commissioner’s denials, the tribunal concluded that this account was indeed accurate.
The Tribunal also accepted the vidence of Mr Boucher-Hayes, who had told the Tribunal that Mr Callinan had taken him aside in RTE and made serious allegations against Sgt McCacbe. Mr Boucher-Hayes said that mr Callinan ‘concentrated on Maurice McCabe and said “this man has issues, he has some well known grievances, well known within An Garda Síochána and there’s all kinds of issues there, Philip, that I can’t talk to you about; there are psychological, psychiatric issues with this man and there’s more that I could tell you, but I won’t, there’s an awful lot worse that I could tell you, the worst possible kind of things, but we’ll just leave it there”.’
The report also took the view that Mr Callinan’s comments to Deputy McGuinness wee made after he had exhausted all possible legal avenues to stop Sgt McCabe giving evidence to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee – the same place forum where Mr Callinan infamously described the whistleblowers as ‘disgusting’.
‘Worked cheek by jowl with Taylor’