Labour was not informed of phone recording concerns, says Rabbitte

THE Labour Party was not informed about concerns of phone recording at Garda stations until the Cabinet met on Tuesday morning, according to one of its ministers, Pat Rabbitte.

The communications minister was responding to reports the former Garda Commissioner was informed at his home on Monday evening that there was “disquiet” in Cabinet about the issue.

Overnight, he considered the discussion he had with secretary general of the Department of Justice, Brian Purcell, and was informed the following morning the situation had not changed, so he announced his retirement.

But responding to this record of events, Mr Rabbitte said: “I know that is not true, because the Cabinet didn’t have the information on Monday night, the Cabinet wasn’t briefed until Tuesday, so it couldn’t be true.”

The only two people in Cabinet who knew about the recordings were the Taoiseach and the justice minister, Alan Shatter, he said. “So the proposition that there was a difference of opinion of some moment around the Cabinet table is an impossibility.”

Denying claims that he had essentially “sacked” the commissioner, Enda Kenny told the Dáil on Wednesday that the reason he had sent Mr Purcell to see him was “I thought it appropriate, given the nature of the s made available to me, that the commissioner should be made aware of the gravity of how I felt about this and its implications.”

RTÉ’s crime correspondent Paul Reynolds yesterday reported details about the run up to Mr Callinan’s resignation on Tuesday, based on sources close to the former commissioner.

They said Mr Callinan was already aware of the gravity of the situation surrounding the phone recordings, which is why he had contacted the department about it in early March, and alerted the attorney general in November.

But. it was reported, the secretary general explained there were difficulties around the Cabinet table in relation to the issue, there were differences of opinion in Cabinet and there may be difficulties for him in Cabinet.

But Mr Rabbitte said: “The first I heard about the records was at the Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning. The first the Tánaiste heard about them was at a pre-Cabinet meeting with the Taoiseach on Tuesday morning.”

He said the Tánaiste did not relay that information to his Labour colleagues, but said there had been “a significant development and I want to leave it to the Taoiseach”.

Mr Rabbitte said he did not know what went on in that meeting between Mr Purcell and Mr Callinan.

But he said the Taoiseach was “entirely right” to take the decision on his own to send a message to Mr Callinan without informing his coalition partners.

A spokesperson for Mr Shatter would not say last night when he became aware of the meeting between Mr Purcell and Mr Callinan.