Shatter claim won’t be put to Guerin
Mr Guerin has remained silent since his report on allegations by Garda whistle-blower Maurice McCabe was attacked by Mr Shatter under Dáil privilege last Thursday.
Mr Shatter suggested he was wrongly forced out of office as a result of the “fundamentally flawed” report, and said in an interview with a Sunday newspaper he was not given enough time by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to read it before making his decision to resign.
“I would of course have appreciated an opportunity to read the whole report,” he said. “I think the conclusions reached by Mr Guerin placed the Taoiseach in an impossible position.”
It would not have been fair to Fine Gael or Labour, if he had stayed in office, he said. “There would have been a tsunami of opposition and media calls for my resignation. Any explanation that I would have given would probably have been described as [Shatter] desperately trying to hold on to my job.”
Mr Shatter described how he was handed the report at 9:15am on May 8, before the Taoiseach announced his resignation to the Dáil later that afternoon. “I was told the decision I made in relation to this report could affect the life of this Government and would I go away and consider the report?” said Mr Shatter.
He had a political engagement that morning and had time to read just three of its chapters before having further discussions with Mr Kenny. “I said to him I recognised the political reality of it, that I assumed he wished me to resign and that I would do so,” he said.
He was “very conscious” of “how supportive” Mr Kenny had been to him during a range of scandals. “What I did suggest was that I be given 24 hours to read it in full,” said Mr Shatter. “The Taoiseach’s concern was that he would be asked questions in the Dáil about ‘could be have confidence in me’ in the light of what the conclusions that were in the report.”
Mr Shatter strongly criticised what he said was the “failure” of Mr Guerin to interview him as part of his inquiry. “I think there are obligations to see clarity as to why matters were dealt with in the manner they were dealt with,” he said.
“I think the Taoiseach could reasonably ask these questions of Mr Guerin and I would have hoped that some of these questions may have already arisen.”
A spokesperson for the Taoiseach said the Government accepted the findings of the Guerin report and its recommendations had been acted upon in the announcement of a commission of investigation into the Garda malpractice allegations and how they were handled.
Fianna Fáil’s Michael McGrath said there was “no point second-guessing the approach of Sean Guerin; his conclusions are very clear.” He said Mr Shatter’s political credibility was long gone by the time he resigned and that he had “mishandled issue after issue after issue for a long period”.
Waterford Independent TD John Halligan said Mr Shatter should have been interviewed as part of the inquiry process, but that “you can’t make so many errors and mistakes and then come along and attack everyone else, which is in essence what he did in the Dáil”.
He added: “In some way, I think he was having a little dig at his own Government colleagues as well.”
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