Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

We know that in 2012, ten gardaí were appointed to investigate the tragic case of Fr. Niall Molloy on foot of new information from Gemma O'Doherty. Guess what they found? Nothing. They found no evidence and no prosecutions were brought. I might add that no one spoke to Gemma O'Doherty either. Those involved in internal investigations are obviously fond of not interviewing the person who brings new information to light. I could also mention our own cases. People the length and breadth of this country contacted us on foot of the work we did originally. In October of last year, we went to the Department of Justice and Equality with almost 30 citizens who wished to hand in details of tragic cases of Garda malpractice that resulted in citizens of this State failing to achieve justice. We did not know if all of those allegations were true, but we knew that the people in question sincerely believed them to be true. The citizens who wanted to hand in their details, who had an average age of approximately 60, and four Deputies from this House were locked out of the Department of Justice and Equality. We had to negotiate on the telephone to get the door open. There is a problem of culture here.

The Minister's relationship with the Garda Commissioner is at the heart of it. In his speech here today, the Minister spent some time dealing with his allegation, which can be disproven, that Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Garda John Wilson did not co-operate with the investigation. He said they failed to take up an invitation from John O'Mahony to engage with his inquiry. That is a bit peculiar because John O'Mahony said clearly at a recent meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts, in response to a question from Deputy McDonald, that he did not invite Sergeant Maurice McCabe to participate in that process. The Minister is just wrong. I think one of the reasons he is wrong - I would take issue with Deputy Martin in this regard - is that he leans too much on the information given to him by the Garda Commissioner at every turn. The only so-called evidence that Sergeant Maurice McCabe or Garda John Wilson did not co-operate with the inquiry is the so-called directive that was issued by the Garda Commissioner on 14 December 2012. I want to put it on the record that this directive was no more than a demand to shut up and back off. No other explanation will tally.

Everybody is talking about this issue now, but it was not always so popular. I want to put Deputies back in the minds of certain people. An internal investigation was set up at the end of October. Five chief superintendents, six superintendents, seven office staff and all of their other staff met over a seven-month period. They were sitting up there for a month without coming near any of the whistleblowers. Deputy Wallace suddenly used a sleight of hand to ask a question that was not on the agenda - our questions had been ruled out of order - and put this matter on the Dáil record. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, answered him in that regard and fair play to him for that. It became a story when "Prime Time" ran with it. What happened next? The whistleblowers were sitting in their base two days later when a confidential circular was posted on the notice board. It said that in order to protect the reputation of An Garda Síochána, anybody who accessed the PULSE system would be audited and anybody who released information would be investigated. The following day, the Garda Commissioner released a press statement saying there was no culture of writing off penalty points. A couple of days later, the whistleblowers were called in and told not to access PULSE. They were not allowed to take a copy of the letter - it was read out to them. They were told to stop accessing those records. Garda John Wilson had his car searched by his colleagues. Another directive was issued a couple of days later. It was not a direction to participate with the inquiry - it was a further direction to stop accessing PULSE. If that modus operandi did not represent an attempt to shut down the inquiry, I do not know what it was.

The Minister, Deputy Shatter, has been at pains to put a divide between the operational responsibility of An Garda Síochána and his responsibilities in the policy area. All I can detect from that is that the Minister's friend, Commissioner Callinan, will be joining his previous friend, Oliver Connolly, among the ranks of the unemployed and that the Minister intends to soldier on to the end of this controversy.

I am heartily sick of this situation. I am disgusted by the Minister's antics, his behaviour today and his behaviour in the past. I do not want to be part of a society that stands over this type of cover-up and I do not believe Irish citizens do either. The Minister might think he has got away with it, but he has not.

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