Wasting any more time on ‘Leo’s leak’ fiasco is absurd

SO, NOW the Director of Public Prosecutions Catherine Pierse has a decision to make – haul Tánaiste Leo Varadkar in before the Old Beak for leaking, in April 2019, what is farcically being referred to as a confidential copy of the proposed State contract with the country’s GPs. Or do the sensible thing and forget altogether about this nonsense as if it never, ever, happened.

To any reasonable person 2019 is now ancient history. The Wuhan plague has come and hopefully nearly gone, but tragically not before killing vast numbers of people worldwide including just over 7,000 here in Ireland.

And then, just when we thought we might be able to take a breather, Russian dictator and terrorist Vladimir Putin turned his murderous attention on Ukraine as the first step in his evil, blood-stained, vainglorious and, hopefully, unsuccessful ambition for a greater Russia and a cowed Europe. See how that’s going for him so far – up to 20,000 dead Russian soldiers, a Motherland that is a pariah throughout the world and an economy that’s knackered and disimproving by the hour as a result of sanctions and isolation.

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LL this comes with a legacy of failure in housing and healthcare, like permanent stains that can never be washed away and now made even more stark as tens of thousands of Ukrainian refugees seek sanctuary here. All through those torments, top detectives in the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation have been rubbing their chins thinking big thoughts about goings-on involving Varadkar. Did he break the law by giving a copy of the proposed GP contract to a friend, Dr Maitiú Ó Tuathail, thenhead of the National Association of General Practitioners, a crowd not party to the contract negotiations?

The detectives collected evidence here and statements there. This was serious stuff, a criminal inquiry of great import. And, despite the country facing existential threats from Hutch/ Kinahan gangsters involved in a merciless feud that has left 18 people dead, the gardaí kept at it.

Finally, after their high-powered investigation that lasted at least 13 months, everything they’d learned was put together into one, neat file and dispatched to the office of the DPP. Job done. Not their problem any longer.

Seriously, this has all been ridiculousness on steroids. And the sooner Ms Pierse draws a line across the whole thing by allowing that Garda file to rest forever in that somewhere office named ‘Forget About It’ the better.

Better because this thing has gone on for far too long. Better because it was a waste of scarce Garda resources in the first place, because literally there was ‘nothing to see here’ arising from the simple fact that corrupt behaviour on the part of the Tánaiste is unlikely ever to be proved and the confidentiality of the GP contract was an utterly absurd concept, seeing as how key elements of that proposed agreement had already been put into the public domain.

Like the gardaí, the DPP is well aware her office also has a duty of care to people suspected of breaking the law, including politicians like Varadkar. That means the DPP must have regard for his career – which, incidentally, is about to take a turn for the better with his appointment as our head of Government next December.

Which makes a timely DPP decision an even more urgent requirement, in the public interest. This matter must not be allowed to drag on much longer. Neither Mr Varadkar nor the people of this country who have a manifest interest in all matters affecting government, must not be kept on tenterhooks until the first or second week of December.

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T IS utterly unacceptable that the Tánaiste felt it necessary this week, while on a trip to California to attract even more direct foreign investment to Ireland and more jobs for Irish workers, to again deny he committed a crime three years ago when he was Taoiseach.

We need a decision that ends this in the next few weeks. And if that means a face-to-face, set-piece, specially scheduled meeting taking up an entire Friday afternoon and involving the top legal brains in the DPP’s office, then so be it. What would be wrong with that?

It’s make-your-mind-up time down at the DPP’s office. And, as the slogan goes: just do it.