Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The former Minister for Justice and Equality is gone because he failed to properly deal with the challenges of policing in Ireland. The challenges did not begin on his watch. Several who held the office before him ignored the obvious. For 18 months at least the former Minister refused to deal fairly and openly with the different issues brought to his attention. Instead he chose to minimise and dismiss and to stand solid with the former Garda Commissioner long after he was exposed. Gradually, the Minister's position became indefensible, which led to us calling for his resignation repeatedly since last December. I was very surprised that the Government of the day stood so solid with him despite the glaring evidence that he was not doing his job properly.

The Guerin report, from our point of view, is not anything new because we heard most of these stories back in 2012 and raised some of them in this Chamber and at a press conference in December 2012 but nobody really wanted to know. Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe had outlined how practices, procedures and cover up was the order of the day and nobody seemed to want to face up to the truth about that. It is good that Mr. Guerin has called a spade a spade because it helps to move matters forward in a positive way.

Since then our offices have been snowed under with stories and reports from different people and I do not know how it will all be dealt with. There are hundreds of them and they are very sad to listen to. I do not know how this should be handled but something will have to be done. One such story comes from a former garda called Jack Doyle. His story gained some attention around 2000. He revealed some serious drug involvement by gardaí in the Cork area and at the time the Garda authorities confirmed that undercover gardaí had been involved in the importation of illegal drugs into the State in what they described as controlled operations. However, a spokesman said that these operations were necessary in order to bring the leaders of criminal drug gangs to justice. Garda management rejected calls for an inquiry into claims made by Jack Doyle, saying nothing inappropriate had occurred.

We got a 27 page report from Jack Doyle into the background to what went on. I will read less than a page of it. He was speaking with one of the drug runners with whom he had become acquainted:

He recounted to me how they had many opportunities to arrest the boss of the criminal gang but failed to do so. When asked why, he replied, "They have a senior garda in their pocket." He then recounted an incident in Rosslare when he was returning with a shipment of drugs. A customs officer stopped him and was about to search his jeep when two plain-clothes gardaí commandeered the jeep and drove out of the terminal at speed, being pursued by customs officers. A high-speed chase ensued and the gardaí lost their pursuers. As a result of this incident he said he would never personally bring drugs in again.

He then proceeded to tell me about the many runs he had done, bringing in cocaine, ecstasy, cannabis and firearms. Massive amounts of drugs were coming in and quantities were allowed to get into the hands of the criminal gang. He told me how he was being well looked after financially by both the criminal gang and the gardaí.

He then went on to tell me where he had left a handgun in a wooden area in Cork. He contacted a particular detective sergeant and told him of the location, and drawing a map in the area pinpointed it. On finding the location, two gardaí threw in a number of firearms to beef up the find. He explained that the press reported it as a subversive arms find. When I asked him why they would do this, he replied, "To further their careers in the force."

Their careers have progressed and one of them is now an assistant commissioner. He was appointed by the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, and this same individual was involved in the Boylan case which entails a very similar story to Jack Doyle's. Jack Doyle's career did not progress. He turned up at his place of work one day and was told, "Jack, you're not coming in here. You'd better go home. You're finished, Jack. But, listen, you'll be grand; we'll look after your pension." He was forcibly retired. That one of the gardaí involved is now an assistant commissioner - he could actually be the next Commissioner - emphasises how important it is that the new Commissioner should come from outside the State with a new hierarchy built around him or her as otherwise problems will not go away.

There is no point in us kicking the former Minister anymore given that he is gone. However, I was really surprised that the Government chose to ignore so much evidence brought to its attention over the past 18 months. It started with the penalty points and the internal inquiry. At that time a confidential Garda memo was sent to all members of the force warning them to stay silent and nobody in the Government seemed to be worried about that. The O'Mahony report was a whitewash and has long been discredited. It offended the rule against bias because it had members of the Garda investigating itself. The constitutional rule of hearing the other side, of course, was not adhered to because the whistleblowers were not interviewed.

The Garda Inspectorate only got the reports under political pressure two months after the Minister got them and it was really just putting a sheen of legitimacy on the whole affair. I spoke about the Garda Síochána Bill earlier today. The Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil parties all voted against it and Deputies queued up in here to tell us how wonderful everything was in the force even though the dogs in the street knew otherwise. They also knew, but there is no culture of holding the Garda Síochána to account because there are no votes in it.

The GSOC Boylan report was damning and its annual report, giving out about the lack of co-operation from gardaí, is really serious. However, sadly, members of the Government actually challenged the credibility of GSOC on a repeated basis during this period. When GSOC asked for access to PULSE in September 2013, it was refused. However, under political pressure at a later stage, in February, it was given access.

It was outrageous that GSOC was not allowed to use section 106 to investigate the Roma children affair. Nor was it allowed to use the racial profiling charge to be part of the terms of reference. Once the former Garda Commissioner said it did not happen, the former Minister said that was okay with him. The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance report of February 2013 stated otherwise and found that gardaí engage in racial profiling, but the Government also ignored that and did not want to know.

The GSOC bugging allegation is one of the most serious of all. It was frightening how poorly GSOC was treated at that time. I also find it frightening that Mr. Simon O'Brien of GSOC would come out and say that he had 100% confidence in the then Commissioner and the then Minister for Justice and Equality when I know that he did not. I wonder if he went over to the dark side. Was this an effort to stop rocking the boat?

Terrible things happened at the Corrib gas protests and the previous Government refused to allow GSOC to use section 106 to investigate them. When we asked the former Minister, Deputy Shatter, he also refused to allow it to look at practices, policies and procedures used by the force at the Corrib gas protests. There is no point investigating individual complaints about individual gardaí because all they would catch would be the foot soldiers and not the people who made the decisions.

So many efforts have been made to bring the truth out and it just beggars belief that the Government has had no appetite for it. Even the former Minister's apology to the whistleblowers had the caveat that the whistleblowers had not been proved right in all their allegations, which was really disappointing. They were never examined, except by Assistant Commissioner O'Mahony who gave no evidence for any of his findings.

Throughout this affair, like the former Minister for Justice and Equality who was reactive rather than proactive, the Government has been reactive and not proactive, reactionary and not reforming. If the Government wants to restore the people's confidence in the Garda Síochána and in policing, and if it wants the people to believe that justice is fairly administered in this country, there is a lot of work to do. Serious questions need to be asked in many areas. We do not do transparency and accountability very well in Ireland, but it is so important that we do it now for policing.

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