Enda Kenny urged to sack attorney general Máire Whelan

Taoiseach Enda Kenny is facing calls to remove a senior state official for the second time this month after ex-justice minister Alan Shatter said the Fennelly report’s failure to find widespread abuse of Garda phone recordings means the attorney general’s position is “untenable”.

Mr Shatter made the call to act, which comes amid ongoing opposition attempts to remove Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan over a separate matter, despite Mr Kenny insisting Máire Whelan has his “full confidence” and will not be removed.

While Ms Whelan warned Government in March 2014 that the garda phone recording scandal could wreak havoc on an unknown number of court cases and convictions, the 742-page Fennelly report has found no criminal case was affected.

The report instead said that, while there are “fundamentally defective” laws governing the recordings and action needs to be taken to “safeguard” the public’s privacy, the controversy arose due to widespread garda “ignorance” on what could be taped.

On March 23, 2014, Ms Whelan informed Mr Kenny and then justice minister Mr Shatter about the three decades of recordings, which she had known about since late 2013. She advised that an unknown number of court cases could be damaged by the revelations and that a commission of investigation was needed to uncover the full scale of the situation.

The Fennelly report noted the advice was ultimately incorrect, and its “alarmist” nature was a factor in the circumstances which hours later led to then Garda commissioner Martin Callinan’s officially stated retirement.

Speaking on Newstalk radio’s Breakfast Show yesterday Mr Shatter — who lost his position in cabinet later that year — said the report’s findings mean both Mr Kenny and Ms Whelan now have questions to answer and that Ms Whelan’s position is now “untenable”.

“In any other European democracy, the attorney general’s position would have been untenable after publication of the interim report [of the Fennelly commission in 2015]. Her position remains as untenable if not more so today as it was at the time when the interim report was published,” he said.

In another interview with RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland programme, Mr Shatter repeated the view, and said “both the Taoiseach and the attorney general have questions to answer”, noting they had sworn evidence rejected by the Fennelly report, a situation he said should be “a resigning matter”.

Jim O’Callaghan.

At a separate event yesterday, Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesperson Jim O’Callaghan criticised Ms Whelan for her “alarmist” advice in 2014 and said Mr Kenny will face questions on the issue and the fallout from it in the Dáil next week.

However, speaking in Berlin during a Brexit-related trip to Germany, the Taoiseach insisted there are no questions to answer.

“Absolutely, the attorney general has my full confidence. The attorney general was quite justified in bringing what was a very serious matter to the attention of Government and to myself.

“The full Fennelly commission and the interim report found very clearly that I as Taoiseach did not have any intention of pressurising the former commissioner and it also found very clearly that the former commissioner decided himself to retire,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Policing Authority has confirmed its audit into the garda phantom breath tests and wrongful traffic convictions scandal will be overseen by an outside agency.

After examining files sent to it by the gardaí last week, the authority last night said it will examine how the errors occurred, governance issues and other matters.

Its investigation is separate to the garda review by external experts, which is to take one year and is due to be finalised in the coming days.