Tricky Garda questions spell more trouble ahead
A Christmas election has been averted but Garda controversy could still trip up this Government, writes Maeve Sheehan
JOHN BARRETT threw down his pen and slumped back in his seat in apparent exasperation. Not for the first time, the Garda’s head of human resources had been blocked by his boss from answering a particularly pointed question at the Public Accounts Committee.
“You’re straying,” the acting Garda Commissioner, Donall O’Cualain, warned Barrett at one point. “I have to insist that these questions are not answered,” he said, at another.
The hot topic was the internal Garda unit set up by the now departed Noirin O’Sullivan to liaise with Mr Justice Peter Charleton’s Disclosures Tribunal. The tribunal is investigating an alleged attempt to smear the whistleblower, Sergeant Maurice McCabe. Barrett had concerns about how the unit was set up and who it served. Alan Kelly, the Labour Party TD and vice chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, knew it. The acting Garda Commissioner knew it.
He also knew gardai are precluded from commenting on a sitting tribunal. Hence the acting Garda Commissioner’s caution about Barrett sharing his concerns. Kelly went to tortured lengths to frame his question. After a fractious 15 minutes punctuated by interruptions and rows, Kelly and Marc MacSharry, the Fianna Fail, TD, manage to extract that Barrett had written “a number of letters” — including to the Garda legal adviser — about his broad concerns about the unit, which included finances and resourcing. These stark facts were as much as the TDs were able to drag into the public domain, before the torturous PAC session moved on to other Garda matters.
But Barrett clearly had a lot more to say on the Garda’s Charleton Liaison Committee. After the Public Accounts Committee meeting, Donall O’Cualain returned to Garda headquarters in the Phoenix Park where an 11-page letter from Barrett outlining those concerns awaited him. O’Cualain considered Barrett’s letter over the course of last weekend, as the Government edged towards collapse over another Garda whistleblower controversy.
There are many lessons to be taken from past Garda scandals and the unfolding political crisis, one being disclosure, disclosure, disclosure. Last Tuesday, as Frances Fitzgerald prepared to resign as Tanaiste, having brought the Government to the brink of a general election, the acting Garda Commissioner decided to invoke the rarely used Section 41 of the Garda Siochana Act to bring serious issues of significance to the attention of the Justice Minister, who is considering how to respond.
The tortured exchanges to elicit information at the PAC mirrored the broader crisis in government caused by the misinformation and non-disclosure of a critical email that appeared to contradict what Fitzgerald knew about the Garda’s “aggressive” legal strategy towards McCabe during the private hearings of the O’Higgins Commission.
Fitzgerald is, for now, the only political casualty. A second, Charlie Flanagan, her successor as Justice Minister, is hanging on. His lapse was that he was told about the email that did for Fitzgerald by his secretary general, Noel Waters, but claimed he missed its significance and didn’t tell the Taoiseach or Fitzgerald. Flanagan has apologised and he and Varadkar have blamed the Department of Justice, which is to be the subject of an external review ordered by the Taoiseach.
The horses have been calmed, said one Fianna Fail TD last week: “But all of this will come back with gusto in the New Year.”
Kelly’s question sparked the trawl of the Department of Justice that led to the discovery of the email that came close to bringing down a government. It was one of scores of pointed, well-informed parliamentary questions he has tabled over the past six months that reflect deep concerns about Garda management but were never, in his view, adequately answered. One promise made by Varadkar was to revisit Kelly’s questions, which follow a dangerous theme of Garda management, their relationship with officials in the Department of Justice and whether they were in cahoots to discredit Maurice McCabe.
One question asks whether the lawyers for the Garda Commissioner met the Garda press officer and director of communications to discuss the findings of the O’Higgins Commission’s final report, before it was published.
He asked whether any officials from the Department of Justice were at it, and whether there was any communication about the meeting to the Department afterwards.
The Charleton Tribunal is already investigating the whether the findings of the O’Higgins Commission were selectively leaked to RTE. The thrust of Kelly’s question appears to be whether the Department of Justice may have been in on it.
Informed sources claim a meeting did take place in Garda headquarters, at which lawyers briefed representatives of the press office on the O’Higgins report just before it was published. The Department of Justice was not represented. Such meetings are “standard” ahead of publication of important reports, the source said.
Another of Kelly’s questions asked whether officials from Flanagan’s Department had dinner in a named restaurant with “a member or members of An Garda Siochana? And who picked up the bill?”
Flanagan replied that officials in his Department met with An Garda Siochana “on a regular basis, including oc- casionally in a social setting” and although he wasn’t aware of this particular meeting, it was “entirely possible” it took place in this particular establishment. A search of the records indicated the Department of Justice “has not paid for dining in the said establishment since at least 2010”.
Allegations continue to surface. In the Dail last week, Caomhghin O’Caolain, the Sinn Fein TD, read out an email purporting to be from an official in the Department of Justice to the then assistant commissioner, John Twomey, in September 2015.
O’Caolain said: “The email apparently contains the following sentence, ‘Same s**t happening again, Wilson, Harrison and McCabe’. It is important to establish the veracity of that document. We are advised that it is indeed a quotation from an email which issued from the Department. I would like to have that confirmed or denied vehemently, hoping the latter is the case.” The Department of Justice said this weekend it was “not aware of ” the email and urged him to send any information on it to the Disclosures Tribunal. Gardai said they had no record of it either.
All of these issues are now likely to be addressed by the Disclosures Tribunal. In an unusual intervention by Mr Justice Charleton, the Tribunal announced that it will hold public hearings on January 8 on the Garda’s legal strategy against McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission.
Its examination will include the Department of Justice emails, what it knew about the Garda’s legal strategy, and whether it constituted an attempt to smear McCabe.
The witnesses will include Fitzgerald, who has claimed she will vindicate her good name. John Barrett is also likely to emerge as a key witness.
His 11-page letter expressing concerns about the liaison unit is likely to be considered by Mr Justice Peter Charleton.
The PAC has heard how the unit was set up by former Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan, with the approval of the Department of Justice, after the tribunal was established,
According to informed sources, among the primary concerns is that as a key witness in a tribunal investigating the alleged smearing of Maurice McCabe, O’Sullivan should not have been involved in setting up an internal Garda unit to liaise with that tribunal.
Barrett’s argument is that the unit should have been outsourced, so that it was at arms’ length from Garda management,
These concerns have already been raised with the Disclosures Tribunal in recent months, according to sources. Garda management were not directed to change the liaison unit or do anything differently, and it continues to operate as it always did, they say. A spokesperson said “an Garda Siochana is precluded from comment on any matters that may be subject to examination by the Disclosures Tribunal”.
‘All of this will come back with gusto in the New Year’