Varadkar: Files should have Dáil privilege

A “box of evidence” from a Garda whistleblower alleging abuse of the penalty point system should be covered by parliamentary privilege, according to Transport Minister Leo Varadkar.

This legal immunity would allow the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to examine the contents of the box, despite Martin Callinan, the Garda commissioner, demanding it be handed over to him.

The committee is currently seeking legal advice on whether it can examine the documents which it is claimed expose millions of euro lost to the State by a failure properly to implement the system.

Mr Varadkar previously met one of the whistleblowers involved in earlier revelations of abuses in the system, and said afterwards that he found the claims “very credible”.

After the contents of the commissioner’s letter was revealed yesterday, Mr Varadkar said it was up to the PAC to decide what to do with the raw material.

However, he said he understood that such documents were protected under privilege granted by legislation governing the Oireachtas. “So what the PAC will have to weigh up really is the privilege they are given to investigate matters such as this on the one hand with the need to protect people’s privacy on the other. That will be a decision for them.”

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, defended the Garda chief, saying he would “consider no more than the commissioner would have written his letter”.

He said he had not seen the correspondence, available at irishexaminer.com and in which Mr Callinan expressed concern that personal data was taken without his authorisation, “but I’m sure he wouldn’t have written it lightly to send to the meeting in the first instance”.

Sinn Féin’s justice spokesman, Padraig Mac-Lochlainn, said the letter was a “disturbing development” and asked for protection for the whistleblowers from the “latest assault”. He said two whistleblowers were vindicated in their earlier decision to reveal certain information which resulted in an internal Garda report on the matter and an examination by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

“The public must know all the facts,” he told the Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, in the Dáil, asking him to “ensure the PAC can do its work with the evidence it has, and reveal the full facts of the scandal”.

He said PAC chairman John McGuinness would be “prevented from doing his job if the Garda Commissioner demands the return of those files”.

Mr Gilmore said: “It is the Government’s view that the PAC should do its job and we support the committee in that regard.”

Submissions

The PAC received two letters, one from Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, the other from Billy Hawkes, the data protection commissioner.

The letters are available on irishexaminer.com. Here are some extracts:

* Mr Callinan wrote, in reference to an Irish Examiner article of Nov 9: “The report stares that one of the garda whistleblowers in respect of the canc-ellation of fixed charge penalty notices has provided you with files containing data which relate to moneys lost to the State through improper cancellation of such notices... I am of the view that these files containing personal data are files which I am responsible for and accordingly should be returned forthwith to me.”

* Mr Hawkes wrote: “If, as is alleged, personal data has been removed from An Garda Síochána without the authorisation of the Garda commissioner and if that personal data has been passed on to you, a third party, the Garda commissioner is correct in reporting to me that the Data Protection Acts have been breached... There is a possibility that a criminal offence may have been committed by the individual who obtained access to the personal data.”