Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Let us together walk the path that the whistleblowers have walked over the past two years.

We will start off with the coming together of the two men. Can the Minister imagine they probably met while they were on duty, or in whatever circumstances, and got talking about some of the issues that they had come across? They, maybe, found strength in each other to raise them and then took their concerns to the former Garda confidential recipient, Mr. Oliver Connolly.

After months and months of getting nowhere - I will deal with the sacking of Mr. Connolly later on and some of the detail of the conversations that he had with the Garda whistleblowers, and I note that Deputy McGuinness has revealed some more details today about other conversations and a culture that existed - instead of being supported they were being advised that they would be better to stay schtum because they would not want to get in the way of the Minister and the Garda Commissioner and their close relationship. That is what is in the transcript. Rather than the Garda confidential recipient feeling empowered that he, as a mediator, would have the ability to bring these issues to the Minister for Justice and Equality and they would be pursued without fear or favour, he found himself advising them otherwise. It is disturbing to read through that transcript. That was the stonewalling that took place for those months.

After that, obviously, they got together and said that the seriousness of that which they were unravelling and on which they were building evidence was something that they could not merely let stay within this stonewall internal shut-down system. They then took their concerns to the Comptroller and Auditor General and sent detailed evidence of their allegations. They also sent them to the Road Safety Authority, and to the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. There was much concern, and many conversations taking place between those bodies, and it was established and agreed that this was serious material that needed to taken seriously and addressed properly.

Still not really seeing progress, they then availed of their right under the law, under section 62 of the Garda Síochána Act, to take their issue to a Member of the Houses of the Oireachtas, in this case, Deputy Clare Daly. Deputy Clare Daly and other colleagues then did their job and came into this House and raised the urgency of this matter. Then, in and around that time, finally, rather than an independent examination immediately of all of these serious matters with a considerable bulk of evidence to back them up in terms of documentation, the choice was to go for an in-house investigation. That in-house investigation, carried out by the assistant commissioner, Mr. O'Mahoney, never availed of the opportunity to speak to the whistleblowers who made the allegations. The Minister should think about the following. Imagine I ring my local Garda station to state my house has been robbed and I am really worried. I ask if somebody can be sent out and the garda comes out onto my street and knocks on every door on my street except my house, the house that was robbed and reported the alleged crime. That is what happened here and the Minister stood over that.

The report was issued in 2013 and the Minister went out on the plinth and castigated with glee the two Garda whistleblowers stating that the vast bulk of what they had stated was reckless, disproved and all over the place. He held that line vigorously under challenge after challenge in this Chamber from the Opposition. That is what he did.

However, it all fell to pieces when the Comptroller and Auditor General made his report. The key findings of that report included one in five persons who were facing road traffic offences were getting off; a half of all road-traffic related summons were not being issued; and, in some Garda districts the level of termination of penalty points was 50 times higher than others. It was a damning report. After that, I came in here, along with other members of the Opposition, and stated that the two Garda whistleblowers had been vindicated and asked the Minister if he would find it within himself to acknowledge that and carry out an independent inquiry into these matters as soon as possible. There was no doubt about it then. It was big, it needed to be looked at. There was massive dysfunction in the management of the system which should ensure we do not have one rule for one motorist and another rule for another, and we needed to change all of that. The Minister refused to address it point blank. It then dragged on.

The Committee of Public Accounts did its job and brought forward the relevant officials until, eventually, the former Garda Commissioner, Mr. Martin Callinan, came before them. He talked about "so-called whistleblowers", and then, of course, he went on to use that now notorious phrase, "disgusting". The Minister knows the message that sent out to any person, man or woman, working in the public or private sectors, that if one speaks out, puts ones career on the line and isolates one's family in one's workplace, that is the level of support one can expect. The Minister never spoke out about those comments. Of course, he himself had misled the House by stating that the whistleblowers failed to co-operate - talk about turning words around to suit whatever agenda was there.

That was the period of two years on the path those two whistleblowers walked. I had a chance to speak to them, as had many other members of the Opposition, on numerous occasions.

They and their families were very isolated and briefly wondered, at times, if they had done the right thing. It is a difficult and lonely place to be. There was very little support but, over time, more journalists, Opposition Members and some Government Members became interested. Finally, when it came to crisis point with what the Garda Commissioner said before the Committee of Public Accounts and the major outcry, the Minister decided to refer it to GSOC for a vigorous, independent examination of the matters at hand. That is the journey, that is what happened.

Now we move on to the apology. It is good that both men are entirely vindicated. They and their families can have some sense of solace that the Minister has finally done this. However, none of the public and no one watching these proceedings believes the Minister has come to this of his own volition. This is to save the Minister's hide. It is too little, too late and this is about saving his political hide. It was impossible not to come in and issue the apology; otherwise, the Minister was gone. Even though the Minister has finally done the right thing and given an apology to the men, he should go. He should resign from his position because of other issues.

Let us walk through the allegations that GSOC offices were bugged. On Monday, the day after the report in The Sunday Times, the Department or perhaps the Minister advised the Taoiseach with a line misquoting the Garda Síochána Act. He turned the victim into the villain. Can we imagine anywhere in Europe where there is a real and legitimate suspicion that an independent ombudsman's office had been the victim of a surveillance attack and that the focus immediately goes to whether it adhered to legislation and reported it to the Minister? That would be bad enough if the Minister was right but he misquoted the legislation. The Minister landed the Taoiseach in that mess that day. The Minister summoned the GSOC chairman, Simon O'Brien, to his building. The next day the Minister came into the House and delivered a report that there was nothing to see here, that everything was hunky-dory and that it was all madness. That was the plan. We know the Minister was given a written briefing by GSOC on Monday that specified three key threats identified by Verrimus, the security company based in Britain. In respect of the second threat, the report stated that the chances of the test result on the phone in the chairman's office at 1 a.m being a coincidence rather than a threat were next to zero. That is very strong language yet the Minister left it out of his presentation to the Dáil. The second threat concerned the IMSI catcher, also known as the stingray, a device that captures 3G and other networks. The threat was described by Verrimus as Government-level technology and the Minister chose to leave out that description. I can only reach the conclusion that the Minister did so to give the impression there was nothing to see so that he could protect the Commissioner and refuse to accept what was presented to him.

One would think the Minister would step back after doing so but the following Tuesday he came into the House with a peer review from an Irish security company, Rits. He gleefully talked about the fact that there was nothing to see here unless the customers of the Insomnia coffee shop were spying on GSOC. This was a condescending remark. The Minister said that not only was there no definitive evidence but no evidence whatsoever and nothing to see here. This was a strong rebuttal. That report was remarkably similar to that of the journalist Paul Williams in the Irish Independentthat morning. When I heard the Minister's speech, I thought it was a strong statement. The Minister came before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions and was asked to give a summary of the findings of the Rits report that led the Minister to make such a strong statement. After three weeks, now that he has finally done so, it is contemptuous. The Minister may come back with something stronger but the onus is on him to do so. What is in the public domain does not justify the Minister's testimony. The objective was to dismantle those who had profound concerns and circle the wagons around the Garda Commissioner.

The next issue concerns the sacking of the confidential recipient, Oliver Connolly. The behaviour of the Minister has been remarkable in his refusal to entertain any criticism of Garda Síochána senior management. By doing so, he has utterly failed the vast majority of the members of the Garda Síochána and led the organisation into disrepute. He has led them into crisis after crisis and the man or woman on the frontline now has a more difficult job to do. That is why the Minister must go. The culture in the Garda Síochána senior management was a closed culture and involved shutting down the ability of the outside world to criticise its management and mechanisms. That is all now in shreds.

That leads to my final comments. The Minister is now an adherent of an independent police authority. Is it not wonderful to see the Pauline conversion on the road to Damascus? I raised this matter in a priority question to the Minister. I asked him if he would go for an independent policing authority and the Minister robustly rejected it, talking about all the reasons why not. The Minister has come around but everything he has come round to has involved kicking and screaming. Let us go back over what the Minister has come round to. He has come around to an independent policing authority, more powers and a properly resourced and strengthened GSOC. Although Sinn Féin is not happy with it, believing it should be an independent commission of investigation, the Minister has come around to the idea of an independent review of the allegations that GSOC offices could be bugged. The Minister resisted but came around to it under pressure. The Minister resisted the documentation handed over by the Fianna Fáil leader, Deputy Martin, to the Taoiseach. It is now subject to an independent review. We are not happy with that and believe it should be a commission of investigation but it is an independent review, which the Minister resisted. Now, the Minister resisted an apology but here he is to save his hide.

It is too little, too late. It is great that it happened but it should have come from the Taoiseach and he should have sacked the Minister and delivered this apology. The Labour Party will seek political cover tonight but in every town, village, street and townland, regardless of people's political affiliation, they think the Minister should go. We must then set about the vital work of restoring public confidence in the administration of justice and to put in place a modern policing organisation that is fully accountable and transparent for the century we live in.

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