Shatter comments disputed by ex-watchdog

A former Garda Ombudsman commissioner has taken issue with comments made by Justice Minister Alan Shatter in which he claimed the watchdog had not felt it “necessary” to take action in relation to complaints made by whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

Conor Brady said it wasn’t true to say they didn’t take action because it wasn’t necessary, rather it was because key witnesses weren’t prepared to make formal statements to confirm details of the complaints.

He was referring to 11 complaints of alleged garda misconduct and abuse made by Sgt McCabe, which the Ombudsman began investigating in 2010, following an internal Garda probe. That inquiry resulted in 10 volumes of files being submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions, who directed no charges be taken.

Mr Brady, who was one of the three commissioners leading the Ombudsman at the time, said officers came to the conclusion that it was not possible to pursue their investigation.

“Rather than saying we didn’t find it necessary to go any further, my recollection is we simply came up against a blank wall. The evidence wasn’t there. People weren’t prepared to talk about things and, in that situation, you can’t take an investigation further.”

He told the Sean O’Rourke radio show that very senior experienced officers went to Cavan, where Sgt McCabe was stationed, to interview witnesses.

“While the witnesses were quite willing to tell them what happened in some of these allegations of malpractice and neglect of duty, when it came to making statements they weren’t going to do that. So our officers had to come back to us and say, look this woman has told us what happened, she’s quite prepared that we should know, but she’s not going to make a statement.”

He said the statement by Mr Shatter in the Dáil on Wednesday gave a “very reasonable and credible paper trail” as to how the state bodies responded to Sgt McCabe’s allegations. But Mr Brady added: “That doesn’t mean Sgt McCabe’s complaints are unfounded.”

In relation to the controversy over whether or not Sgt McCabe was directed to co-operate with a Garda investigation into his claims over penalty point abuses, Mr Brady said, if gardaí had wanted to talk to him, they could have done so.

“McCabe can argue that he wasn’t directed to co-operate with the inquiry,” he said. “I can see many reasons why he would be very nervous to co-operate with the inquiry.”

Mr Brady, author of a history of the Garda, said there was “a very long tradition” within the force of people being “punished” for putting their heads above the parapet. What the country was seeing at the moment was the “unravelling of the protections and the safeguards” put in place after the findings of the Morris Tribunal into abuses among gardaí in Donegal.