Garda whistleblower may address PAC

A Garda whistleblower who provided a “box of evidence” alleging widespread abuse of the penalty points system may have to give evidence to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee in private next week.

The Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan — who said the committee was not authorised to examine the dossier and demanded it be returned to him — will be before the PAC today to discuss the implementation of the penalty points system.

He told PAC chairman John McGuinness that he will not answer questions on individual cases, and his role there will be to discuss a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General which found that a fifth of motorists caught for fixed-charge notices evaded fines.

That report is understood to have been carried out without information that has since been provided to the committee by a serving member of the force.

The whistleblower has expressed an interest in appearing at a public hearing to discuss the contents of the box, which he alleges shows the loss of millions of euros of State money through a failure to properly implement the system.

At a private meeting of the PAC last night, it was agreed that the whistleblower should be provided with a transcript of Mr Callinan’s evidence from today, and then take legal advice on whether or not he should appear in public or private session.

The decision will centre on whether he is willing to appear in public without revealing the identities or names of individuals, or other legally sensitive information.

His box of evidence has been at the centre of a dispute between Mr Callinan and the PAC since Mr Callinan wrote to the committee in November, demanding its return “forthwith”.

Mr Callinan made his annoyance known to Mr McGuinness, following a report in the Irish Examiner that the committee had received the volume of documentation.

The committee then received legal advice that it could only look at whether, or how, the State was losing money as a result of alleged abuse of the system, and not personal information, which has since been redacted.

In a letter to PAC clerk Ted McEnery last week, Mr Callinan said the An Garda Síochána Act 2005 “does not authorise your committee to receive sensitive, personal data which has been disclosed without the authorisation of the relevant data controller”.