Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We all know that when Sergeant Maurice McCabe and the now retired garda, John Wilson, came forward within the Garda Síochána with serious concerns about the administration of the penalty points system, they were systematically and deliberately frustrated in their efforts. On paper, there was a system within the Garda Síochána through the confidential recipient for serving members of the Garda Síochána to bring forward their concerns and to have them addressed.

Not alone did that system fail but it actively connived to prevent the two whistleblowers making known their concerns and having the concerns investigated and remedied. That is how serious the blockage was within the Garda. It was not sloppiness, happenstance or accidental; it was a deliberate decision within the Garda to try to shut up the two men. Not alone that; another decision was taken within An Garda Síochána to apply pressure on those individuals and to obstruct them in carrying out what should have been very routine tasks in the course of their duties. That is what happened.

God knows the penalty points issue has been debated and discussed for months on end. Even today, I am still left with the very strong impression that the Minister does not understand how fundamentally toxic those events were within the Garda. I am convinced that the Minister’s strategy of minimising the issue and trying to gloss over it is not just a public position on his part; that is how he analyses, interprets and understands what happened. Somewhere in the corner of the Minister’s mind this was not such a big deal. It was revealing today when the Minister again referred to the penalty points system and said it was a minor aspect of their work to support his own case.

Maurice McCabe and John Wilson not only deserve an apology they deserve a commendation from the Minister and the Government for their courage and absolute persistence and stamina. Not alone do they deserve to be acknowledged; their families deserve to be acknowledged too. The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report, to which my colleague referred, comprehensively vindicated the two men, as did the report of the Garda inspectorate. The Garda inspectorate went further than the Comptroller and Auditor General could go or was prepared to go in that it estimated the loss of revenue to the State by the failure to serve summonses at approximately €7.4 million. We never got a concrete figure from the Comptroller and Auditor General but the broad calculation was always somewhere in and around €5 million. The moneys that were lost, although not game changers in terms of the overall budgetary arithmetic, were nonetheless sizeable sums of money.

On top of what happened to the two gardaí within An Garda Síochána, the Minister compounded the wrongs visited on them. He abused the men in the most crude and public manner possible. He questioned their truthfulness and their personal and professional credibility. The Minister came into the House and made a statement that was factually incorrect and calculated to further undermine the two men. In doing that, he was wrong. Today, under more pressure than grace, the Minister finally conceded that he was wrong. I take issue with the Minister on his apology. Remarkably, as he apologised the Minister claimed it was never his intention to mislead the House. I challenge him on that because it was very much the Minister's intention to mislead this House. It was clearly his intention to paint the two men as irresponsible-----

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