NO COVER-UP
He says they’ve nothing to hide – but key questions remain about the actions of Taoiseach’s department after the initial allegations
‘Garda misconduct probed by gardaí’
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has denied that his Government is conducting a cover-up of attempts to interfere in the prosecution of a civil servant.
This is despite the fact that his justice department has contradicted what his own spin-doctors told the Irish Mail on Sunday last week. The MoS last week revealed the claims of a Garda whistleblower who says that a civil servant, who works at the Department of the Taoiseach, was arrested by officers after a drunken incident in June.
A protected disclosure document alleges that when senior officers became aware of the arrest, they tried to stop the prosecution.
The whistleblower alleges abuse of power, seeking to pervert the course of justice and coercion of the gardaí. Yet while Mr Varadkar denied a cover-up, civil servants at his department failed to answer key questions about actions they took after the allegations were made to the Department of Justice. ‘As far as I am concerned, this is an incident involving a civil servant, in their private time. Nobody in the department had a role in this,’ the Taoiseach said. The MoS sent a list of questions to the various arms of the State involved. The Taoiseach’s department and An Garda Síochána refused to add to their previous statements. The Department of Justice denied any ‘political interference’ but crucially gave more detail which seemed to contradict the Taoiseach’s timeline.
The Department of Justice said when they became aware of the allegations, they sent them to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. Last week, the Taoiseach’s department said their secretary general Martin Fraser was spoken to by his justice counterpart in November – and informed that the situation was being investigated by An Garda Síochána. This would mean gardaí would have been investigating Garda misconduct – and that Mr Fraser had not sought to have it sent to Gsoc.