Backbench TDs cast doubt on Callinan’s position
Coalition party TDs last night stood firmly behind Justice Minister Alan Shatter but some privately questioned Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan’s position and even suggested he should go.
The comments come after calls from senior Cabinet ministers in recent days for Mr Callinan to withdraw his public suggestion that the acts of two Garda whistleblowers were “disgusting”.
TDs said that a call by Transport Minister Leo Varadkar this week for Mr Callinan to apologise had “gone down very well” with party members.
“He [Mr Varadkar] was talking straight. The commissioner needs to clarify his position,” one backbencher said.
Another TD said the Garda chief should resign and that he had overstepped his authority.
It was now clear there was no justification in the Garda commissioner making the remarks about the Garda whistleblowers before an Oireachtas committee in January, one TD remarked.
Earlier, the party’s Waterford TD and Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee member John Deasy, agreed that the Garda chief should apologise and that Mr Varadkar was “right” to say what he did.
Fellow committee member and Labour TD Robert Dowds also agreed, telling RTÉ: “I particularly welcome the fact that Minister Varadkar made those comments. It was particularly useful that it came from somebody, a senior member of Fine Gael.”
The Garda Press Office have said that Mr Callinan has “clarified” his comments saying they were not used in reference to the character of the two whistleblowers, but “the manner in which personal and sensitive data was inappropriately appearing in the public domain without regard to due process and fair procedures”.
Fine Gael TDs contacted yesterday said the position of Mr Shatter was not in doubt. Ahead of a Dáil debate on the penalty points saga next week, TDs backed the embattled minister.
“His position is fine, he’s a very reforming minister and working extremely hard,” argued one party TD.
