COME OUT OF HIDING

WHO KNEW, WHO READ, WHO SAID NOTHING?

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

FEBRUARY 2017: The Department of Justice receives a protected disclosure from Garda HR Boss John Barrett. The disclosure raises the issue of the legal strategy pursued by gardaí against whistleblower Maurice McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission.

KELLY BRINGS IT TO DÁIL

OCTOBER 27 TO NOVEMBER 8,

2017: A series of Dáil questions are submitted to the Government by Labour TD Alan Kelly, about what the department knew about the Garda legal strategy.

OFFICIALS FIND EMAIL

NOVEMBER 9: The department uncovers an email confirming that then-justice minister Frances Fitzgerald was made aware of the Garda legal strategy.

FLANAGAN IS TOLD

NOVEMBER 13: Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan, pictured above, is alerted to the existence of the 2015 email at the same time as he is told by his secretary general Noel Waters that he is retiring. According to the Taoiseach, he directs the email be sent to the Charleton inquiry but doesn’t read the email.

LEO MISLEADS THE DÁIL

NOVEMBER 14: The Taoiseach tells the Dáil that the department had ‘not been able to find any record of being informed before the fact of the legal strategy’. Sitting beside him is Minister Flanagan, who knows of at least one relevant record.

FLANAGAN IS SILENT

NOVEMBER 15: Taoiseach again asserts the Tánaiste ‘had no hand, act or part in determining the legal strategy of the former commissioner [Nóirín O’Sullivan, pictured below] and had no prior knowledge of the legal strategy’. He also says the department only knew of it after the cross-examination of Maurice McCabe. Again his Justice Minister, who knows more than the Taoiseach is saying, is sitting close by.

TÁNAISTE INTERVENES

NOVEMBER 16: Tánaiste says the email was brought to her attention on this date, after she rang the department. She says she can only assume she read it in 2015. She earlier told the Taoiseach she only became aware of the broad details of the commission when they came into the public domain, in May 2016. In any case, she argues, she could not be involved in the legal strategy.

LEO READS EMAIL

NOVEMBER 20: Taoiseach becomes aware of the email at 11.30pm, a full week after the Minister for Justice was informed of it. According to Mr Varadkar, he and Mr Flanagan read the email at the same time. The late disclosure to the Taoiseach is labelled ‘curious and extraordinary’ by Fianna Fáil.

DÁIL CORRECTION

NOVEMBER 21: The Taoiseach corrects the Dáil record. He said after his reply in the House last week, he got new information, and that the email was sent to him at 11.30pm the night before, for the first time. Ms Fitzgerald only became aware of the details when they came into the public domain in 2016, even though she received the email in 2015 email, he said.

CORRECTION NO.2

NOVEMBER 22: The Taoiseach comes into the Dáil to correct the record again. He says the Tánaiste did not have knowledge of the legal strategy until that email was sent on May 15. ‘That is after opening statements, after the fact, after the hearings were already under way.’ He insists he has ‘nothing to hide’. He asks for ‘a full trawl’ of documents in the Justice Department. He admits the Tánaiste got the email on May 15, 2015, three days before the cross-examination of Sgt McCabe took place. He says he is ‘not satisfied with the fact that on a number of occasions – at least two in the past week – I have been given incomplete information from the Department of Justice’. He admits there is ‘confusion’ surrounding the email. He says he spoke to Sgt McCabe for 15 or 20 minutes and McCabe had disputed the contents of the email. He says criminal allegations concerning sex abuse were not raised that day and not raised at all at the O’Higgins Commission. He says the transcripts of the O’Higgins Commission will show this. This ‘leaves us all a little confused because we do not even know if the contents of the email were accurate’.

SF TABLES A MOTION

NOVEMBER 23: Sinn Féin tables a motion of no confidence in Ms Fitzgerald. Fine Gael passes a motion unanimously supporting her. Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan tells RTÉ that his party cannot support the Tánaiste and will either propose its own motion or vote against her in Sinn Féin’s.

FF’S MOTION

NOVEMBER 24: An unredacted version of the email shows that Ms Fitzgerald, her two special advisers, her private secretary, the secretary general of the Department of Justice and two other DoJ officials all received the email on May 15, 2015. Fianna Fáil tables a vote of no-confidence in her.

LEADERS MEET

NOVEMBER 24: Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin meet in Government Buildings. On the Six One News, the Taoiseach says seeking Ms Fitzgerald’s resignation would be ‘throwing a good woman under the bus’.

THREE-DAY DEADLINE

NOVEMBER 25: Health Minister Simon Harris describes the charges against Ms Fitzgerald as ‘flimsy’ and insists the party won’t ‘roll over’ on this issue. FF’s Jim O’Callaghan says there are three days left to prevent a general election. Meanwhile, crisis talks between FG and FF continue in a bid to avert a general election. It is confirmed by the Department of Justice that their records show that Frances Fitzgerald read the email.