Nóirín’s rocky road could lead her to the Mounties

THE problem with the Garda Commissioner’s five-week summer holiday is that it is not quite long enough – eight weeks would be better. Come September, when the current anger has subsided, Nóirín O’Sullivan deciding to leave would end the continuing crises for her – and the Government, particularly the Taoiseach.

Or, to put it more crudely: ‘Better to ease her out a side door than throw her into a baying mob at the front gate.’

We will never know if Ms O’Sullivan and the Taoiseach have ever privately discussed her leaving in order to secure his continuing confidence of her in public.

But they did meet last week at the first meeting of the Government’s new security committee and Mr Varadkar reiterated his full confidence in her. And he went on to publicly support Ms O’Sullivan’s plan for an extended holiday.

A month earlier, Mr Varadkar said he had confidence in her at leader’s questions in the Dáil – although he did raise questions about Garda evidence at the Jobstown trial on Prime Time earlier this month.

While he never fails to publicly state his confidence in Ms O’Sullivan, many suspect that privately he would do almost anything to see the back of her.

The commissioner will miss a meeting of the Policing Authority on July 27, but that is of much less consequence than what will probably be the defining moment of her career: giving evidence at Dublin Castle for Judge Peter Charleton.

But there can never be a fairy tale career ending for her now after the series of scandals on her watch as the first female commissioner.

Also, opportunities for Ms O’Sullivan to take her talents abroad will be greatly enhanced if leaving is her choice — and her going does not trigger a political argy-bargy.

I hear Ms O’Sullivan will spend much of her five-week holiday in Canada – she has a son in Vancouver on the west coast and influential friends of a friend in Ottawa.

Relocating to law enforcement or academia in Canada would be a practical solution to the intractable problem of her continuing as Garda Commissioner.

I’m told that the current Canadian Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin Vickers, is a good friend of hers.

Ambassador Vickers was a chief superintendent in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and as sergeant-at-arms in the Canadian parliament he was responsible for its security.

He shot a gunman who had murdered two guards at a war memorial in October 2014 and was hailed as a national hero. In May of last year, Ambassador Vickers grappled with a protester who was interrupting a ceremony commemorating British soldiers killed in the 1916 Rising before handing him over to the gardaí.

HE WAS described to me as a ‘policeman’s policeman’. Mr Vickers is a very influential figure in policing and the administration of justice in Canada and would be a helpful friend should Ms O’Sullivan decide to move there. And the sooner, the better for Ms O’Sullivan: it is difficult to see how her circumstances can improve in the coming months.

Scathing criticism of Garda management by the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee last week was published as shocking details emerged from the whistleblower inquiry in Dublin Castle.

Both the commissioner and the Government may have concluded that it would be prudent for her to be gone when Mr Justice Charleton delivers his report.

In a way, Ms O’Sullivan is becoming an Irish political version of Typhoid Mary – no one will back her and the Government won’t sack her.

Kathleen O’Toole, the chair of the Commission of the Future of Policing in Ireland, refuses to comment on Ms O’Sullivan’s tenure as commissioner – while other influential experts are distracted when her name arises.

After an enormously expensive crash course in public relations, Ms O’Sullivan’s most convincing talent now is her ability to face down politicians – a skill more associated with a politician than someone in a Garda uniform.

Her career could not have soared higher here, so will her next professional challenge straddle the Rocky Mountains? DONNACHA FOX, the investment boss at Quilter Cheviot, outshone his rivals this year and went on to use literary allusions in a message to clients. ‘I liken macroeconomic forecasting to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot, as it’s an achievement coming to any agreement as to what the subject matter of the aforementioned play concerns,’ he says. ‘Much the same as the economy at large.’

I assume Mr Fox baulked at referencing The Wolf Of Wall Street. LIKE a discreet butler or a High Court judge, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe is a master of understatement. Last week he said of Big Phil Hogan’s handling of the water charges fiasco: ‘Things could have been done better’. That’s the equivalent of a plain speaking Fine Gaeler saying: ‘Big Phil made a total pig’s mickey of the water charges.’

And it was all the more of a shock coming just days after Big Phil was awarded the ‘Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash for Services to Austria’.

Hogan was described as Austria’s ‘special friend’ in a ceremony in Brussels punctuated by renditions of You Shall Be The Emperor of My Soul and Danny Boy. It was reported that Hogan politely declined an invitation to accompany a soprano in the chorus of Danny Boy.