Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will start by thanking Mr. Justice Charleton and the tribunal team for conducting such an efficient and thorough investigation, as requested by the Houses of the Oireachtas in February 2017. Mr. Justice Charleton has produced two substantive reports within a period of 20 months, and those reports have categorically answered the questions and issues of urgent public importance that this House asked him to determine. He has produced reports which are well written, clear, decisive and erudite. He has done exactly what we asked him to do. That said, it is important to note the limitations of tribunals of inquiry. As I said when we were debating the terms of reference back in February 2017, a tribunal of inquiry is just a fact-finding body. It is not there to determine penalties or to impose sanctions on individuals. It is simply a fact-finding body to determine what happened.

The Houses of the Oireachtas establishes tribunals of inquiry when there are matters of urgent public importance that the Dáil and Seanad believe merit investigation and report. When one looks at the tribunals of inquiry that we have had in this country over the past 20 or 30 years, one will note that all of them derived from political controversies. Many of the political controversies that give rise to tribunals of inquiry originate in this House. This is true of the beef tribunal, the Flood tribunal, the Moriarty tribunal, the Smithwick tribunal or indeed the disclosures tribunal. All of the aforementioned emanated from issues of political controversy.

It is worth going back and recalling the political issues that led this House to determine that we needed a public inquiry. The first was that in September 2016, a superintendent at the Garda press office made a protected disclosure in which he made very serious allegations against the then Garda Commissioner, Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan. There was also a protected disclosure made by Sergeant McCabe at that time. The Government agreed at the time that there needed to be an investigation of those allegations. At that stage, it was not thought that a tribunal of inquiry was appropriate but that there should be a commission of investigation.

When the terms of the commission of investigation were being drawn up, a second issue arose in February 2017, namely, the broadcasting by RTE of a report on its "Prime Time" programme to the effect that Tusla, the child and family agency, had produced a report which contained an allegation against Sergeant McCabe that was 100% false. It suggested that Sergeant McCabe had been involved in criminal activity for which no allegation had ever been made against him. Mr. Justice Charleton, on page 33 of his report, says that it "was justifiable for the people of Ireland to suspect at the time of the setting up of this tribunal in early 2017 that the ostensible capacity to destroy members of An Garda Síochána exercised by Garda Headquarters extended even to using national social services for that end." I recall that in February 2017 there was legitimate concern, not just on the Opposition benches but within Government, that there had been a campaign against Sergeant McCabe that resulted in the social services being used to defame him. That was the second reason for members of this House deeming it appropriate to establish a tribunal of inquiry.

The third issue giving rise to the setting up of a public inquiry was that at the same time, there had been selective publication of one or two pages of the report of the commission of investigation conducted by Mr. Justice O'Higgins which suggested that Sergeant McCabe had been aggressively cross-examined and that the Garda Commissioner had sought to undermine him at that commission. These were the reasons behind the establishment of a tribunal of inquiry. These were urgent matters of public importance and it is to the benefit of this country and these Houses that we had an inquiry and a report has been produced.

It is important to note, however, that the allegations made by Superintendent Taylor against the former Garda Commissioner, Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan, were false. They were untrue allegations but at the time there was a lot of pressure on people to say that Nóirín O'Sullivan should resign because of them. Fianna Fáil did not say that she had to resign. We said that she was entitled to defend herself against those allegations. The lesson this House should learn from this is that if serious allegations are made against individuals and if those individuals deny them, they are entitled to defend themselves. If the allegations are sufficiently serious, then we set up a public or private inquiry to determine where the truth lies.

On the issues involving Tusla, Mr. Justice Charleton is very clear. He says that the copy and paste mistake, whereby part of a report about a different individual was inserted into Sergeant McCabe's report, was "an unbelievable coincidence" but despite its bizarre nature, it was a "genuine mistake". My colleague, Deputy Rabbitte, will speak in due course about Tusla, but we should reflect on the fact that Mr. Justice Charleton referred to what went on in that organisation as constituting "shocking administrative incompetence". That is a fairly damning condemnation of a State agency and, as policymakers, we need to determine what must be done in respect of it.

The second part of the allegations made by Superintendent Taylor was that there was a campaign against Sergeant McCabe, who also made this complaint. There was a campaign against Sergeant McCabe. It did not involve Nóirín O'Sullivan, but it did involve the former Commissioner, Mr. Callinan. The most deeply disturbing aspect of the report is that it reaches a finding that a Commissioner of An Garda Síochána used his office and power to repulsively denigrate Sergeant McCabe. It is wholly inappropriate for a Garda Commissioner to launch an attack on a member of the Garda force in that way.

When people heard that Sergeant McCabe had been accused of child abuse, the most serious allegation that could be made against an individual, they were legitimately and genuinely outraged by it. Some thought that it would constitute criminal behaviour. It does not. The only remedy Sergeant McCabe has is his constitutional right to his good name. The only remedy he can have to rectify the damage is through a defamation action. I appreciate and acknowledge that the Minister for Justice and Equality today apologised to Sergeant McCabe on behalf of the State. It was the right thing to do and I commend the Minister for doing so. Apologies in defamation actions, however, are just words. Sergeant McCabe is entitled to another remedy, which may be a matter for another day. The State needs to recognise that its most senior police officer engaged in a campaign of calumny against him, as described by Mr. Justice Charleton, and that campaign of calumny has to be rectified by the State.

The other part of the report deals with what happened at the commission of investigation before Mr. Justice O'Higgins. The terms of reference included wanting to know whether the allegation of sexual abuse had been used against Sergeant McCabe at the commission of investigation. We had very little to go on, one page, but there were suggestions from other quarters that, in fact, Sergeant McCabe had been aggressively questioned and this allegation had been used against him at the O'Higgins commission of investigation. We now know from the report of Mr. Justice Charleton that there was no reference to any allegation of sexual abuse at the O'Higgins commission of inquiry and that although the transcript did indicate at the outset that there were instructions on the part of the former Garda Commissioner's senior counsel to challenge the integrity and motivation of Sergeant McCabe, in fact, was a mistake made by counsel representing the former Commissioner, Ms O'Sullivan. Mistakes happen, which I fully accept, but it was a serious matter which merited investigation.

I am conscious that the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, got caught up in the issues associated with Sergeant McCabe after we had established the terms of reference for the tribunal of inquiry in February 2017. In November 2017 information came out which suggested that, in fact, the then Minister and the Department of Justice and Equality had been aware of the Garda strategy being used by the Garda Commissioner in the O'Higgins commission of investigation. I bear no ill will towards Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. I share the Minister's views of her in that I believe she is a very fine politician, but I cannot be insincere and go back and try to recreate what happened in November 2017. On that occasion, inaccurate incorrect information was given to the Dáil. There was a requirement for political accountability and, unfortunately for Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, she got caught up in it. There was nothing personal in it on my part or that of my party, but the difference between the former Minister and the former Commissioner, Ms O'Sullivan, on whom some called to give up her job, is that the former Minister was accountable to this House. Politicians in Dáil Éireann are only accountable to it for utterances in this House; no tribunal of inquiry is entitled to regulate what they state in this House and it was our responsibility.

I will now give my colleague, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, some time. This is an excellent report. The seven obligations Mr. Justice Charleton has imposed on members of An Garda Síochána should be set out. People at home watching this debate who have not read the report should read it. There is some great language in it. I particularly like the story about the penitent who went to confession, but that is a matter for another day.

See this speech in context