Newspaper slammed for ‘appalling’ approach to reporter giving evidence
A NEWSPAPER group has been criticised by the Disclosures Tribunal for “actively discouraging” one of its employees from giving evidence to the inquiry.
In the interim report, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said ‘Irish Daily Mail’ journalist Alison O’Reilly was told that anyone who went to a tribunal with information out of a sense of duty might end up on the receiving end of criticism themselves.
The judge said this was not an appropriate way to deal with an employee who wished to cooperate with a public inquiry. “In fact, it is appalling,” he said.
Mr Justice Charleton said “worse was to follow”. A letter to the tribunal from her employers in April of this year claimed Ms O’Reilly was “an embittered person”.
Ms O’Reilly later gave evidence about a series of conversations with journalist Debbie McCann of the ‘Irish Mail on Sunday’.
She alleged Ms McCann told her former Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan was a source for her belief that Sgt Maurice McCabe was a child abuser.
She also testified Ms McCann told her she had visited Ms D, the woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted as a child by Sgt McCabe.
The DPP found no offence of any kind had been disclosed against Sgt McCabe.
These conversations were denied by Ms McCann. But the tribunal accepted Ms O’Reilly’s evidence.
Mr Justice Charleton said Ms McCann had “a strong attitude” in relation to Sgt McCabe at that time.
The judge said she could not be seen to be a purveyor of gossip and was entitled to speak frankly, if at times seriously exaggeratedly, about an issue that was of interest to fellow journalists.
He said “someone had strongly biased the mind” of Ms McCann against Sgt McCabe. The tribunal was convinced this was not Ms O’Sullivan nor Ms McCann’s father, a retired garda, but then Garda press officer Supt Dave Taylor.
The judge said Ms McCann and another journalist who also went to visit Ms D, Eavan Murray of the ‘Irish Sun’, were “taken in” by Supt Taylor.
“This was a case of Debbie McCann making a mistake and being sucked into the orbit of Supt David Taylor,” the judge found.