Enough of shameful tokenism, dismantling ‘Independent Republic’ must be next step
THE Fine Gael party has resembled a headless chicken for the past two weeks. Ultimately, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar must accept responsibility for inept political judgment in tackling his tánaiste’s turmoil. He unnecessarily placed his Government and his party in peril by failing to grasp the gravity, context or latent significance of Alan Kelly’s relentless parliamentary questions.
Leo has failed his first test of crisis management – despite the most benign constructive assistance of the leader of the Opposition, Micheál Martin, who acted with maximum restraint and minimal opportunism. He deserves credit for his cool, calm statesmanship.
The entire tenure of Frances Fitzgerald as justice minister covered May 8, 2014 to June 14, 2017. To assert the first she knew of Garda management’s campaign of retaliation against Sergeant Maurice McCabe was in May 2016 could never be sustained. This week’s latest revelations of departmental emails, conversations and briefings exposed the falsehood.
Appointing and constantly defending Nóirín O’Sullivan as Garda commissioner and Noel Waters as secretary general at Justice meant she favoured and protected the status quo rather than seeking radical reform.
The first wave of the toxic fallout from the failed McCabe character assassination ended the careers of former justice minister Alan Shatter, Garda commissioner Martin Callinan, and secretary general of the Department of Justice Brian Purcell.
The second wave toppled Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Ms O’Sullivan, Mr Waters and Ms Fitzgerald. But more need to go. Management structures at An Garda Sióchána in the Phoenix Park and the Department of Justice in St Stephen’s Green need to be deconstructed.
The McCabe affair must be seen in conjunction with 1.4 million fake breath tests, Templemore training centre finance fraud, the politicisation of reopening Stepaside Garda station, and the failure to comply with evidence procurement requirements of the Disclosures Tribunal.
The ‘Independent Republic’ of the Department of Justice needs to be dismantled. It hasn’t so much regulated the Garda Síochána, as acted as its downtown office. It has used the cloak of ‘State security’ to operate a secretive culture unanswerable to the elected government. It is dysfunctional in passing communications to ministers in time, proving this week that it always covers its own backside.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan risks becoming its latest victim by failing to assert his ministerial authority.
There has been no visible controls in its inadequate trawls of information; no public repudiation of the contempt shown for Judge Peter Charleton’s exhortations of providing the fullest evidence. Mr Waters’s ‘retirement’ phone call of November 9, alluding to fresh emails, should have sparked premonitions of political panic.
There is no evidence of culture change inside that department, despite the endemic cluster of career destruction. There has been no implementation of the Toland report.
What’s required is simple: the appointment of ‘outsiders’ to the key positions and a political will at the highest level to separate the security and intelligence functions from policing, prisons and courts.
Garda culture won’t change until departmental structures are modernised, broken up and made separately politically accountable. Repeated attempts at reforming policing through the Garda Inspectorate, GSOC and latterly the Police Authority failed because of the departmental buffer that served to thwart fundamental change.
The Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland has already seen the resignation of Conor Brady.
The appointment of a new Garda commissioner is being controlled by the Department of Justice.
Fine Gael has had six years
of ministerial control of the Department of Justice, during which all of the preceding criticisms have been constantly recited in the media and by TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly. The tokenistic response of the Kenny administration was to make minor managerial adjustments, circling the wagons and undermining the credibility of critics. It’s all shameful stuff, mitigated only by the even more shameful self-serving advice offered by the civil service.
It was absolutely absurd for the Taoiseach to consider precipitating a general election at this time, on this issue. It would be incomprehensibly naïve, on the eve of the EU Brexit summit, to rupture the tenuous trust that underpins Fianna Fáil’s supply and confidence agreement. Such reckless leadership, misplaced macho politics, and intemperate judgment from Mr Varadkar raises questions about his maturity as head of State.
The dogs in the street (myself included) were barking last Wednesday that the tánaiste could not survive this controversy. The Taoiseach’s misguided loyalty, flawed intuition, and poor political instincts escalated this to a full-blown crisis in Government and Fine Gael.
This has also done international damage to Ireland’s standing in the midst of an EU standoff as Britain flails in its bid to reach phase two of the Brexit negotiations. It is a spectacular own goal and has earned Leo a yellow card. A second yellow could result in him being sent off the pitch. The Blueshirts will be aghast at the amateur approach of the neophytes in charge of their party.