Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is important to recap on some of the events which led to the establishment of the O’Higgins commission in late 2014 and early 2015. The commission was established to investigate in detail the serious allegations made by Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe into Garda malpractice in the Cavan-Monaghan division and Garda investigations into serious crime. This followed months of controversy and a refusal by the Government to deal properly with allegations that crimes were not properly investigated. As the O'Higgins report has found, the crimes which were not properly investigated were of the most serious nature, including false imprisonment, assault, murder and sexual assault. Mr. Justice O'Higgins finds that investigations into these crimes were deficient and it is the victims of these crimes who have been let down the most and who deserve Members' utmost sympathy and solidarity in the furore that has ensued following the report’s publication.

The publication was mired by almost two weeks of selective and disruptive leaking in advance of its release by the Minister for Justice and Equality, as well as further leaking of transcripts associated with the commission’s work. The media management of a report of this importance is entirely unacceptable, as was the leaking of the papers that were part of it. Will the leaking of the report be investigated properly? Has the Minister considered this and, if so, who will conduct the investigation? Such action undermines the culture of openness, transparency and accountability that is required in the operation of the policing and justice systems.

It is worth noting that following the publication of the Guerin report, the Taoiseach told the Dáil there was a need for a root-and-branch analysis of the administration of justice and I agree with that statement. Sinn Féin has been critical of the unhealthy relationship between the offices of the Garda Commissioner and the Department of Justice and Equality over the years. In the aftermath of numerous controversies, we called for a new dispensation for the depoliticisation of oversight and the establishment of an independent policing board similar to that established arising from the Patten commission in the North. Under such a process, the Garda Commissioner would have been accountable to an independent policing authority with full powers to hold the Garda to account. While that is what Sinn Féin proposed, that is not what the Government produced. Although there is a Policing Authority, the most senior Garda, namely, the Commissioner, remains accountable to the Minister for Justice and Equality. Would it not be far better for the Commissioner and for the Minister for Justice and Equality - any Minister for Justice and Equality - if this was not the case? In this case, it is a Minister for Justice and Equality who refuses to answer questions in the Dáil put to her by the Opposition, whose job it is to hold her to account. The Taoiseach has also refused to answer the same questions when I put them to him. I must also state it is bizarre and unacceptable that just as the Policing Authority was about to assume responsibility for the most senior Garda appointments, the Government pulled the rug from underneath it yesterday and appointed four assistant Garda commissioners. There can be no justification for this action. The Government’s appointment of the four new assistant Garda commissioners subverts the role of the very Policing Authority it established and, again, such action does not bode well for a more open and accountable culture in the administration of policing and justice. Why then did the Government make these appointments? Why not permit the Policing Authority to do this?

Just before the eventual establishment of the O'Higgins commission, the Taoiseach intervened and played a central role in all these matters, when the Attorney General informed him during a telephone conversation that she did not trust the integrity of her telephone and needed to speak to him in person in respect of a particular matter. She alerted the Taoiseach to the issue of the taping or tapping of telephone calls in and out of Garda stations and after months of telling the Dáil there was nothing to see, the Taoiseach acted in an entirely unorthodox and unacceptable way. Moreover, I said this at the time. This all happened in the run-in to the events which led to the unprecedented resignations of the Garda Commissioner, the confidential Garda recipient, the then Minister for Justice and Equality, Mr. Alan Shatter, and the Secretary General at the Department of Justice and Equality. Mr. Shatter of course was central to the difficulties which emerged arising from the whistleblowers' revelations about practices in the upper echelons of the Garda. The Garda whistleblowers were smeared and bullied. There was a clear attempt to smear Sergeant Maurice McCabe's good name through the calculated leaking that emerged in the weeks before the publication of the O’Higgins report. Such attacks on his good character are extremely worrying and no doubt will make other potential whistleblowers think twice before coming forward - this is what happens to one when one does what he did - and this could contribute to what the O'Higgins report concluded was the closing of ranks.

The O'Higgins report vindicates Sergeant McCabe as a man of integrity and a highly competent garda committed to the good of the force, and yet accusations have emerged about how the Garda Commissioner briefed her legal team for the O’Higgins commission. This afternoon, the Garda Commissioner issued a statement. It provides very little clarity to the issues I and others raised with the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach. Despite there being no legal impediment to the Commissioner providing full clarity, the statement fails to provide the full detail of her instructions to her legal team. Of concern is the fact that she states that her legal team was not "instructed to impugn the integrity of Sergeant Maurice McCabe", but further on she suggests it would not have been unreasonable or improper for such a strategy to be pursued. In the light of the contradictory claims being made about the Commissioner’s instructions to her legal team, this comment lends weight to the belief that Sergeant Maurice McCabe’s integrity really was at stake. The Commissioner's legal counsel had already confirmed that he had challenged the "motivation and credibility" of Sergeant McCabe. How does one logically question someone’s motivations and credibility without also impugning his or her integrity? Such semantics do not instil confidence in the Commissioner’s capabilities to oversee the root-and-branch culture change so badly needed within An Garda Síochána.

I understand from the Commissioner’s statement that the two senior officers who interviewed Sergeant McCabe are to be investigated by GSOC. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten Members as to when this referral was made. Was it simply made because of the mounting public disquiet or was it when the Commissioner received the report?

The O’Higgins report contains a number of important recommendations and it is vital that these be implemented in full without delay. The problem is that it is the Commissioner who has to do this, yet the Minister has not held the Commissioner to account with regard to the questions that I and others have asked concerning her instructions to her legal team. The Dáil has not been given a satisfactory explanation. The Minister has not yet told the Dáil whether she has asked the Commissioner about this so here we are, almost ten days since we asked these questions, and the Minister has not even told us whether she asked the Commissioner about these issues of controversy. Unfortunately, this debate is not the end of the matter, and the Commissioner's statement today is not the end of the matter either. Despite the efforts of the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael parties to close ranks in defence of the Commissioner, Sinn Féin will continue to press for full disclosure in respect of her role in the Sergeant Maurice McCabe affair. This requires the Minister for Justice and Equality to hold the Commissioner to account and to answer legitimate questions in the Dáil about how she does it.

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