Decision due in Shatter action

A High Court judge has reserved his decision on an action by former minister for justice Alan Shatter aimed at quashing certain parts of a report concerning his handling of allegations made by Garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe.

Having heard closing arguments from both sides yesterday, Mr Justice Seamus Nooan said he was reserving judgment. Mr Shatter was in court throughout the three- day hearing.

In the judicial review proceedings against barrister Sean Guerin, Mr Shatter wants orders quashing certain sections of the May 2014 report compiled by Mr Guerin after his review of the handling by the relevant public bodies of Sgt McCabe’s allegations.

Mr Shatter claims Mr Guerin made a number of “highly critical” findings concerning the then minister’s handling of those allegations, leaving Mr Shatter with no alternative but to resign as minister the day after the report was published.

Mr Guerin denies any unfairness in his report or in the manner in which he carried out his review and said his report contained “observations”, not conclusions, based on documents provided for the review by the Department of Justice.

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The disputed aspects of the report include statements by Mr Guerin that Mr Shatter had accepted the response of the commissioner to the McCabe complaints “without question”. The report also said the process of determining Sgt McCabe’s complaints went no further than Mr Shatter receiving and acting upon the advice of the then Garda Commissioner Martin Callanan, “the very individual who was the subject of the complaint”.

Closing the case for Mr Shatter, Patrick O’Reilly said Mr Shatter was given no notice by Mr Guerin that “conclusions” “impacting heavily” on his good name would be reached in this “unfair” report. The report was “clearly critical” of Mr Shatter whose good name had been “besmirched” without his being given an opportunity to respond.

Earlier, in closing submissions for Mr Guerin, Paul Gallagher said documents provided by the Department of Justice to Mr Guerin showed Sgt McCabe made complaints from 2011 and by March 2014 “nothing material” had been done.

The disputed “observations” by Mr Guerin concerning the former minister’s handling of the McCabe complaints were based on those documents which “speak for themselves”. Mr Shatter, an experienced lawyer, could have been under no misapprehension as to the purpose of those documents being provided to Mr Guerin, counsel said.

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