Shatter insists he has confidence in all of his staff
While declining to answer questions about the role of secretary general at the Department of Justice, Brian Purcell, in the handling of communications about the matter, Mr Shatter said he had confidence in every staff member and that the commission would deal with any issues that arose.
The minister was speaking after addressing members of the Association of Garda Superintendents at their annual delegate conference in Co Kildare.
Responding to the call by the Oireachtas Justice Committee for changes to the terms of reference so the circumstances surrounding the resignation of Martin Callinan, the former Garda commissioner could be clarified within weeks, he said he would consider any submissions made.
Mr Shatter would not discuss Mr Callinan’s resignation except to praise his contribution to the force but he said: “I’ve already privately phoned him and wished him well.”
Earlier in his address to the association’s 120-strong membership, the minister said it was a time of “enormous opportunity to modernise our structures and to address issues that perhaps for too long have hidden under the surface”.
On the whistleblowers issue, he said: “No-one should assume that individuals raising issues are doing so for any reason other than their perception of public duty. Issues raised, criticisms made and suggestions given will not in all cases be right but perhaps in the past in too many cases they have been dismissed.”
He reserved his strongest comments for what was taken as a reference to the incidents last year where two Roma children were taken into care out of ill- founded concerns that they were not with their real parents.
He said he had concerns about racial profiling in a fast-changing Ireland in which 70,000 people born outside the country had acquired Irish citizenship in the last three years.
“There is a concern that because on occasions members of police forces in Ireland or elsewhere don’t understand the background and cultures of some individuals, and don’t quite understand the difficulties they may have had in having relationships with police forces in their home country, that conclusions are reached about issues that may not be accurate, that on occasions people with the best of intentions adopt stereotypical images of individuals from minority communities, don’t always engage in a manner that is appropriate, and indeed on occasions will jump to conclusions.”
He also warned about leaking information to the media.
“Of course it’s important to engage with the media, of course it’s important to be transparent, but there are occasions — particularly with investigations into matters being conducted — where all sorts of stuff finds it way into print that I think would be better off finding itself in the courts system.”
