Garda Commissioner needs to step up or step down

If the Garda Commissioner knew a false case was going to be made against Garda McCabe her position is untenable. If she didn’t, she still has questions to answer, writes Michael Clifford    

On August 25, 2008, two officers travelled to Mullingar to meet Sergeant Maurice McCabe to discuss the complaints of malpractice he had made.

Neither the superintendent, nor the sergeant who accompanied him were based in Mullingar.

The pair met with Sergeant McCabe at the town’s garda station. McCabe outlined his complaints and the two listened with some interventions. The meeting is understood to have been fairly cordial. It ended with an agreement on what had transpired, with notes compiled and agreed verbally.

Afterwards the superintendent drew up a detailed report of the meeting and had it countersigned by the sergeant who had accompanied him. That report was forwarded to a chief superintendent.

Nothing further resulted from the meeting. Some months after that, an internal garda inquiry, headed up by Assistant Commissioner Derek Bryne and chief superintendent Terry McGinn was established to investigate McCabe’s claims.

If there had been a dispute at the Mullingar meeting, or an allegation of an admission by Sergeant McCabe, it would surely have featured in the Byrne/McGinn report. Yet there was no mention of it.

Byrne McGinn reported in 2010. The report came in for some heavy criticism in the O’Higgins report for failing to properly investigate elements of the cases McCabe had highlighted.

Fast forward to May 2015. The O’Higgins commission had just begun its hearings. Without warning it is announced by counsel for Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan that a case will be made against McCabe claiming he had acted out of “malice” in bringing his complaints. (The commissioner’s counsel didn’t actually use the word “malice” but his submission amounted to such a claim).

The “evidence” for this claim would be provided by the two officers from the meeting some seven years previously, the commission was told. This pair would say that at that meeting McCabe revealed that he was making his claims because he bore a grudge against a particular superintendent.

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This was the first time McCabe or his legal team had heard of such a claim.

What ensued was a lot of too-ing and fro-ing between lawyers for the commissioner and McCabe and Judge O’Higgins, which formed the basis of the transcripts that have been published in the Irish Examiner and elsewhere in recent days.

The position that the commissioner found herself in as a result of this strategy was encapsulated by McCabe’s lawyer, Michael McDowell, in the exchanges.

“Attacking one of our own members of our force who is in uniform and on oath when in circumstances where in public she promoted him to a professional standards unit and in public she has indicated that she accepts that he was acting in good faith et cetera et cetera and in private she sends in a legal team to excoriate him.”

McDowell demanded that he be given forewarning of the evidence in written form. In response, a document was produced from the office of the chief state solicitor outlining a sequence of events that culminated with the Mullingar meeting, and the alleged admission by McCabe.

Then the bombshell. McCabe revealed that he had made a recording of the meeting in question. He produced the tape to the commission and it was transcribed. Three weeks later, Judge O’Higgins returned and declared that the tape revealed McCabe’s version of events was correct. There was no animus expressed towards any other officer.

Thereafter, the matter wasn’t visited again in the commission. The pair who were due to give evidence were not called on the matter. It was as if it was a try-on and once it didn’t succeed, there was a hope that it might go away.

It hasn’t. If the commissioner is to retain credibility as a leader who wants to oversee a force where whistleblowing is welcomed as a positive element of policing, she needs to explain whether she was aware that two of her officers were going to give false evidence against another, McCabe, a man whom the commissioner had publicly lauded.

If she did know that false evidence might be proffered under those circumstances, her position is untenable.

If she didn’t know, there are plenty of questions that require answers. In such a scenario she was misinformed by her officers. How well did she research the claims being made by the two officers? This, after all, was something that would put her in direct conflict with McCabe whom she had publicly lauded.

Surely she would want to know exactly what she was getting into.

If she didn’t know then, she was inadvertently placed in a position where she was party to an attempt to mislead the inquiry.

Surely she must be hopping mad on a personal basis if that is the case. On a professional basis what has she done? The Irish Examiner understands that absolutely no action has been taken against the two since this affair emerged last May.

How exactly has the commissioner dealt with a matter that could be a conspiracy to commit a crime within her force in an attempt to discredit a whistleblower?

For a leader who has professed fidelity to changing the negative aspects of garda culture, Commissioner O’Sullivan might have been expected to have acted long before now.

Why hasn’t she contacted McCabe? The ruse was discovered last May. Once she discovered it, she must have known that a further grave injustice was nearly visited on the man who had been put through years of hell before his claims were properly examined.

Surely, she should have contacted him and offered an explanation or even an apology, albeit on the basis that she had been misinformed herself.

If Commissioner O’Sullivan wants to put the matter to bed, and plug leaking credibility from the top of the force, she needs to address these points in a comprehensive manner.