Growing calls for apology to garda whistleblowers

There are growing calls for the two Garda whistleblowers who raised concerns about the cancelling of penalty points to receive an apology over how they were treated.

A senior minister has also joined calls for more protection for whistleblowers as Labour TDs and senators over the weekend expressed support for a new authority to oversee the gardaí.

The demands come ahead of a Dáil debate next week on the Garda Inspectorate’s damning report into the penalty point system, which found widespread breaches and huge wastage. The report is seen as a vindication for whistleblowers Sgt Maurice McCabe and former garda John Wilson.

Simon Coveney, the agriculture minister, said: “We have to put a credible system in place for the gardaí and the other sectors of the Irish State infrastructure, so that if people have complaints to make they should be facilitated in making those complaints and they should be supported and protected in doing that.”

Speaking to a newspaper in Australia while on a St Patrick’s Day visit, he continued: “That’s why it’s so important that we have a proper Garda Ombudsman’s office that’s functioning and working properly and is properly resourced and that we have a complaints system within the guards that works as well.”

The Fine Gael minister’s comments come after Labour parliamentary members backed plans for a new Garda authority over the weekend which would oversee the force and the Garda commissioner.

Several TDs and senators wrote an open letter in which they suggested the force in general and the commissioner should be accountable to a new body. Currently, the Garda ombudsman can only examine wrongdoing in the force and it cannot investigate the commissioner.

Dublin North Central TD Aodhan O’Riordain said such an authority was needed. He also said Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan should apologise to the garda whistleblowers for how they were treated.

“I think in order for us to get beyond this particular situation and to start focusing on how we can deal with every situation in the future, I think the minister should do what he has to do and the Garda commissioner should do what he has to do,” he told RTÉ’s Saturday with Claire Byrne.

Labour senator Susan O’Keeffe backed calls for an apology yesterday and also said she supported moves to examine a new authority to oversee the force. “The Garda Commissioner’s office needs to be under the scrutiny of an ombudsman commission in the future.”

Much criticism has surrounded comments made by Mr Callinan and he has come under pressure to apologise after he told an Oireachtas committee he thought the actions of the whistleblowers was “quite disgusting”. Pressure has also mounted on Mr Shatter to say sorry after he told the Dáil in January that Sgt McCabe refused to cooperate with an internal Garda probe into the penalty points saga, despite the fact the whistleblower was never invited to contribute to it.