Nóirín O’Sullivan on the rack as Josephine Feehily turns screw

Political Editor Daniel McConnell reports on the ever-deepening trouble in which the Garda Commissioner finds herself over the revelations related to Garda Maurice McCabe

You can just imagine Enda Kenny’s face on Thursday night.

You can audibly hear the thumping of tables and screaming when the no-holds barred statement came out from the new independent Policing Authority.

For two weeks, Fine Gael, as well as their new best friends in Fianna Fáil, have done their best to kill off this controversy engulfing Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.

That strategy was blown out of the water by new Policing Authority boss Josephine Feehily and her team, which clearly believes something is badly rotten in the state of the gardaí.

Like a powerful matriarch, Ms Feehily, who is a former head of the Revenue Commissioners, commands almost unrivalled respect among the political class. As someone who has watched her at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over the years, I know she is the consummate no-nonsense professional, who suffers no fools. Her reputation is well deserved.

Her appointment to the new Policing Authority was a rare moment of inspiration from Mr Kenny’s government. Since the statement’s release on Thursday night, the pressure has been placed firmly back on Ms O’Sullivan to illustrate clearly that she is up to the job of reforming the force.

So far, she has simply failed to do so, and finally we have a body of authority and sufficient clout saying so.

However, the statement was scathing in its criticisms of garda failures and Ms O’Sullivan has only a matter of days to recover some ground. She has many issues to deal with.

The authority voiced serious concern at the impact on victims and at the systemic performance and management failures, dismay at the familiarity of performance failures through various inquiries and reports going back to the Morris Tribunal into matters in Donegal.

Ms Feehily’s group expressed deep unease at the organisation as evident in the report.

It is also clear the authority spoke to Ms O’Sullivan about the raging issue about what instructions she did or did not give to her legal team in relating to how to handle whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

“In the view of the Policing Authority, the pressing performance and public confidence issue which arises from the current public discussions of ‘transcripts’ relates to the Protected Disclosures Act, the treatment of disclosers and the culture of the gardaí,” the authority said.

“In response to questions, the commissioner outlined the legal constraints within which she is operating. The meeting of garda officers in Mullingar, Co Westmeath, which we believe was addressed by the Tánaiste in the Dáil, was also discussed.”

As Commissioner, Ms O’Sullivan has to face being grilled by the authority twice next month in order to illustrate her capacity to reform. Worse for the commissioner, these outings will be in public.

However, it was Ms Feehily’s comments in the wake of the four-hour meeting which really packed a punch. She said the recurring deficiencies in policing performance evidenced in the O’Higgins final report were “deeply troubling”.

“In exercising its oversight role, the authority will seek evidence of a tangible response to those lessons including at the two forthcoming public meetings in June. Today was just a first step in this oversight process and there is clearly a lot of work to be done,” she said.

The authority also gave Ms O’Sullivan some homework to complete before their meeting on June 13. They called on her to publish the Garda Síochána Protected Disclosure policy at the earliest possible date as should be the Garda Síochána Public Attitude Survey.

The Policing Authority also expects to see a formal Garda Síochána response to the findings and recommendations made by Judge O’Higgins. Independent TDs such as Clare Daly and Mick Wallace have long criticised the Government’ decision to have the authority under the remit of the Minister of Justice. This they say undermine its independence.

However, Ms Feehily’s opening salvo would give a very clear sign that she intends maximising her powers as much as possible.

However, as powerful as a contribution the Policing Authority’s statement was, another contribution on Thursday was equally significant.

Fianna Fáil TD for Kilkenny John McGuinness, who is the ex-chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, made an interesting contribution to the Dáil debate on the O’Higgins report.

He said: “I gave an account of when Garda McCabe came before the Committee of Public Accounts. Every effort was made by those within the Garda Síochána at senior level to discredit Garda Maurice McCabe. The Garda Commissioner [Martin Callinan] confided in me in a car park on the Naas Road that Garda McCabe was not to be trusted and there were serious issues about him.

“The vile stories that circulated about Garda McCabe, which were promoted by senior officers in the garda, were absolutely appalling. Because they attempted to discredit him, he had to bring forward various pieces of strong evidence to protect his integrity. During the course of that time, we have to recognise that the political establishment was of absolutely no help to him.

“Every effort was made to ensure he would not appear before the Committee of Public Accounts. Every effort was made to dampen down the strong evidence he put into the public domain, which he had to do to protect himself, to inform us about what was going on with penalty points and other issues.”

As my colleague Mick Clifford and I report today, Mr Callinan sought the meeting with Mr McGuinness in order to dissuade the committee from its desire to hear from Sgt McCabe.

This revelation by the straight-talking Mr McGuinness, who himself took a risk in disclosing the meeting, is truly significant, because it cuts to the core of the culture within the gardaí that in reality, dissent was seen as disloyalty.

Speaking out meant you were a rat, a traitor, and meant you as a whistleblower deserved to be shunned, isolated and worse.

This was important because the bringing of Mr McCabe before the PAC was a significant step forward in terms of establishing the credibility of what he was talking about. Almost every member of the committee at the time described him as a credible witness who deserved to be taken seriously.

All of this evidence which is beginning to emerge does not paint a picture that the lot of a whistleblower in the gardaí is any better today than when it was in 2002 when the events in Donegal began to surface.

Painted as the new broom, Ms O’Sullivan’s willingness or ability to change the culture of the gardaí is in question. The onus is very much on her and Frances Fitzgerald to demonstrate in the coming weeks that a real sea- change in the gardaí is underway.

When you hear of officers such as Nick Keogh and Keith Harrison who, off-duty, having spoken out and suffered significantly as a result, it appears an awful lot of work remains to be done.

However, from a political point of view, surely the Policing Authority’s refusal to allow this controversy die means Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil can abandon their disinterested stance and drive through the sort of changes we all want to see.