ANATOMY OF A DISASTER
How the crisis unfurled… and what could have been done to avert it
At times over the past fortnight as the latest episode in the Garda whistleblower saga seemed to unfold as a slow-motion political car crash. While it may have been impossible to look away as the new taoiseach faced his first major crisis, a review of the key moments shows that basic mistakes were made by the Fine Gael leader, which had he avoided, could have led to a different finale as Anne sheridAn relates:
÷TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14 INCORRECT INFORMATION
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tells the Dáil that the Department of Justice had ‘not been able to find any record of being informed before the fact of the legal strategy the commissioner was going to pursue’ against whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.
÷WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15 DEFENDS TÁNAISTE
Taoiseach again asserts that Frances Fitzgerald, pictured below, ‘had no hand, act or part in determining the legal strategy of the former Commissioner and had no prior knowledge of the legal strategy pursued by the former commissioner’.
÷MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20 EMAIL SENT TO TAOISEACH
Taoiseach says that at 23.27pm one of his staff emailed him a copy of the email – a full week after Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan was informed of it ‘in passing’ during a phone conversation with secretary general of the Department of Justice Noel Waters. At this stage, alarm bells should have been ringing loudly.
÷TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 21 THE MORNING AFTER
The next day, the Taoiseach should have got department officials, Mr Flanagan and Mrs Fitzgerald into a room to confirm precisely what they knew and to ensure everybody was singing from the same hymn sheet. If such a meeting happened, there is no evidence they got control of the situation, as events continued to outpace the Government’s response.
CORRECTING THE RECORD 1
Leo goes into the Dáil to correct the record. He downplays the issue as him simply being misinformed. Mrs Fitzgerald also speaks to the Dáil. But there is no comment from Mr Flanagan. The response is inadequate and leaves questions unanswered. This means that issues emerged in a damaging drip-drip, which allowed the crisis to develop with devastating momentum.
÷WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22 CORRECTING THE RECORD 2
An Taoiseach has to correct the Dáil record for a second time, as it becomes clear after a redacted version of the email is released, that Mrs Fitzgerald knew about the strategy before any crossexamination – and in time to do something had she wished to. Mr Varadkar had previously rested on her inability to do anything because it was after the crossexamination.
CONFIDENCE & SUPPLY
The Taoiseach takes a call from Micheál Martin, who says FF do not have confidence in Mrs Fitzgerald. Mr Varadkar asks for time to consider this and says he will come back to Mr Martin. Crucially he doesn’t. And the next day, Mr Martin has to ring him. This basic misstep seems to suggest a lack of urgency or betrays a lack of understanding of FF’s views on the issue. Either way, it’s baffling.
MISLEADING THE SEANAD
Mrs Fitzgerald tells the Seanad that she got the email on the same day the department found it, November 16. However, before she stands up in the upper house, it breaks that the department discovered the email a full week before that. This changing story is disastrous.
÷THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 23 LEADERS QUESTIONS:
The Tánaiste continues to defend her record on whistleblowers – but fails to deal with any of the substantive questions and the continually changing narrative. This last opportunity to prevent a Sinn Féin motion of noconfidence fails. Even worse, the narrative changes again off-stage as Mr Flanagan confirms he knew about the email since November 13 – before he sat beside an Taoiseach as he misled the house and before his agitated attack on Alan Kelly, whose Parliamentary Questions prompted this entire debacle.
SIX ONE ULTIMATUM
Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan goes on the Six One News and says FF will introduce a no-confidence motion or will vote for Sinn Fein’s. The die is cast and we have a fullblown Mexican stand-off between the Government and the main opposition party. The question the whole country is asking is how was it let come to this? Only An Taoiseach knows the answer.
FINE GAEL MEETING
Mr Varadkar responds to the Six One interview at a Fine Gael party meeting and backs his minister. This may be admirable loyalty but the swiftness of his response comes across as an escalation, especially once it becomes clear that he was informed of Fianna Fáil’s feelings the day before.
÷FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 24 EMAIL RELEASED
An unredacted version of the email is released and shows that Mrs Fitzgerald, her two special advisors, her private secretary and department’s secretary general all received the email concerning the legal strategy on May 15, 2015. Fianna Fáil tables a vote of no-confidence in Fitzgerald as it becomes harder to believe that the troublesome email did not ring alarm bells for any of these people.
TRUMPED UP CHARGES
An Taoiseach appears on RTÉ and insists that Mrs Fitzgerald’s resignation would be ‘throwing a good woman under the bus’ and insists she has ‘done nothing wrong’. He argues that Fianna Fáil’s issues are ‘trumped up charges’. When he eventually has to climb down, statements like this add to the humiliation.
÷SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25 FIANNA FÁIL’S UPPER HAND
Varadkar receives an interim report from the department after ordering a trawl of correspondence sent in relation to Sgt McCabe. He is given the second email that shows Mrs Fitzgerald had been briefed by gardaí and her officials on how to answer press queries about the controversial legal strategy. It is a bombshell. But this does not seem to register with the Taoiseach. Crisis talks continue in a bid to avert an election, with FF saying the only option to prevent this is Mrs Fitzgerald’s resignation.
÷MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27 NOT ONE EMAIL, BUT THREE
Two further emails sent to former tánaiste indicating the Garda commissioner’s ‘aggressive’ strategy towards Sgt McCabe, which had not previously been disclosed to the tribunal, emerge following the trawl of documents. Public opinion swings against Mrs Fitzgerald, even within her own party.
TWEET NOTHINGS
A desperate Mrs Fitzgerald tweets her defiant statement that she intends to stay in her job. The tweet goes viral and attracts online vitriol.
CLAIRE BYRNE
RTÉ’s Katie Hannon broke the story the week before. Her reporting on the fresh emails, Mr O’Callaghan’s clear laying out of the charges against Mrs Fitzgerald and Irish Times columnist Fintan O’Toole’s skewering of the hapless minister mean the writing is on the wall. Simon Coveney attempts to hold back the tide but he is talking only to his own party and most of them have already decided Mrs Fitzgerald must go.
÷TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 28 TÁNAISTE RESIGNS
Within hours of her defiant tweet, Mrs Fitzgerald announces her resignation, with Mr Varadkar saying ‘a good woman is leaving office without getting a full and fair hearing’. To maintain credibility, he should have fired her. He stands in the Dáil like a chastened schoolboy, praising his FF counterpart for his good faith in negotiations.
APOLOGY TO ALAN KELLY
Mr Flanagan apologises to Labour deputy Alan Kelly for his ‘intemperate comments’ in the Dáil, after earlier accusing Mr Kelly of being engaged in a smear campaign against him. He should have better handled deputy Mr Kelly’s parliamentary questions, he admits. The rout is complete. A disastrous crisis has ended. But the fallout is still to be fully absorbed.