Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not have enough time to do justice to Mr. Justice Charleton and his team, who have done a great public service. I had the good fortune to attend the tribunal on several occasions. I was struck by Mr. Justice Charleton's patience, sharp intellect and wit. Some people have said he has indulged himself a little in this report. He was perfectly entitled to do so given some of the nonsense he had to sit through and listen to.

The Charleton report is a searing indictment of several State institutions, in particular, An Garda Síochána and Tusla, and the media. Mr. Justice Charleton castigated a number of journalists for frustrating the work of the tribunal and the public will. He castigated the public relations companies, which he has characterised, correctly as far as I am concerned, as a hideous development in Irish public life given the domination of spin.

In some ways, we could say Mr. Justice Charleton has probably been a little polite in his language regarding some of the individuals who appeared before him. The implications are clear, however. Many of those who gave evidence at the tribunal need what Mr. Justice Charleton referred to as a cultural shift that requires respect for the truth. In other words, he was told a whopping amount of lies.

The disclosures tribunal was established publicly to find the truth and Mr. Justice Charleton has laid bare a vast amount. This report is a real education for the people in that regard. First and most important is the total vindication Mr. Justice Charleton has given to Maurice McCabe. This cannot be understated. Sergeant McCabe is a fine policeman and a man of integrity who was repulsively denigrated. The best thing about how Mr. Justice Charleton handled Maurice McCabe is that there are no ifs or buts.

This was crucial for Maurice and his family, for his wife Lorraine and his father, the two rocks who stood behind him on this very difficult road.

I am delighted that everybody is patting Maurice on the back now and that he is the people's hero, but it was not always so. Mr. Justice Charleton pinpointed that "The facts do not amount to an exoneration of the gardaí in their treatment of Maurice McCabe". He said that his complaints generated considerable animosity, which continued over years. The station was divided. People did not want to get involved. A total of 430 former and current senior gardaí were written to by the tribunal. Only two replied, and not one of them ever heard anything derogatory about Maurice McCabe. That is improbable, to use Mr. Justice Charleton's words. He said that when Maurice was "seeking a better level of policing standards, there were plenty of people who said there was nothing wrong". I absolutely know that is the case. Arguing that was a long and lonely place in the early years, and while the terms of reference concentrated on particular aspects, it was never supposed to be a definitive account of policing in Ireland. In many ways, Mr. Justice Charleton picked up on this at the Committee of Public Accounts, which was the culmination in some ways of the first round. It was not the start of this issue but came on the back of approximately two years of raising issues in this House.

Mr. Justice Charleton has dealt with the issues very well. We do not have the time to go through all of them but, in terms of the former Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, I note the Taoiseach tweeted that we should apologise to Deputy Frances Fitzgerald. Neither I nor Deputy Wallace joined the baying hyenas here this time last year who were looking for the head of the then Minister. We made many points over the years about her handling of issues in the Department of Justice and Equality but not about people coming up in 2017 supposedly criticising her for knowledge she had in 2015 of the Commissioner's dealings at the O'Higgins commission, knowledge they all had in 2016 and did not do anything about. I do not believe I need to give an apology in that respect.

What those emails did show, however, is that what was going on at the O'Higgins tribunal was not normal. It was a big deal. There were emails, calls and frantic efforts to contact the Commissioner, and while Mr. Justice Charleton did not find that Nóirín O'Sullivan relied on false sex abuse allegations to discredit Maurice at the O'Higgins commission, we never said that she did or believed that she did. What was being said, however, and what was shown was that evidence was being produced at the O'Higgins commission to question his motivation. We had the words of Colm Smyth and, critically, the letter of 18 May and the complaint against Superintendent Michael Clancy. While Mr. Justice Charleton said that the letter "went off the rails" and that it was strange, he put it down to a mistake. Ultimately for him, the only issue was whether that had anything to do with Nóirín O'Sullivan, and as other people said it had not, he did not want to go there, but it still happened. For me, it is convenient to put it down to a mistake. What would have happened if Maurice had not had the tape?

People talk about poor Nóirín O'Sullivan, and I note the Taoiseach referred to people who precipitated her early demise. We are a long time on the record as saying that Nóirín O'Sullivan did not go quickly enough. That is nothing personal. She should never have been appointed in the first place but did she hear about Templemore? Did she hear anything about false breath tests, the treatment of other whistleblowers or any of that good stuff, all of which was going on in the background?

While Mr. Justice Charleton accurately stated that she had no hand, act or part to play in the campaign of the then Commissioner, Martin Callinan, and Dave Taylor, that is not the same as saying that she had no case to answer. In fact, he did not accept her evidence on the lack of engagement with her legal counsel or on her dealings with Noel Waters, whose evidence he did not accept either. He went on to make many comments contrary to her evidence, that her evidence was disappointing and so on. He also talked about it being improbable that she could not but have known what was being said about Maurice McCabe and, in essence, did nothing in that regard.

The report accurately condemns the then Commissioner, Martin Callinan, and Dave Taylor. That has been well aired, but they were not the only ones involved. A number of retired gardaí were criticised as being inappropriate and extraordinary in their behaviour, including Assistant Commissioner Kenny, Superintendent McGinn and Chief Superintendent Sheridan, but what about serving members? Detective Superintendent O'Reilly was promoted since the tribunal started, but Mr. Justice Charleton is quite critical that his decision to introduce Paul Williams to the D family caused further and completely unjustified pain. What will be done to him? What will be done to John Barrett, the head of human resources, whose evidence was described by Mr. Justice Charleton as preposterous? He said he was not satisfied that the conversations alluded to by John Barrett, allegedly with Cyril Dunne, ever took place. He did not believe his evidence in terms of Maurice McCabe either. That is very serious stuff.

I refer to the false rape case being an unbelievable coincidence. I accept fully the judgment of Mr. Justice Charleton on that.

Rian counselling service came out well in the report but, my God, what an indictment of Tusla. The report refers to error upon error, complete misinformation, and files being randomly selected. Mr. Justice Charleton said it was not a coincidence that Tusla opened Maurice McCabe's file. They filleted a file that went to the historical sex abuse team and replaced the file when it came back. Those are points we do not have time to deal with.

Mr. Justice Charleton said he had a dreadful struggle to uncover the truth. I believe he uncovered an incredible amount of it. He said it is a cultural and an attitude problem and that reform of An Garda Síochána and coming up with new structures will not deal with it. I agree with him on that.

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