Garda whistleblower disputes Helen McEntee's version of events told to Dáil

Helen McEntee said that on the same day she received the protected disclosure from Detective Superintendent Brian O’Reilly, the Garda commissioner, Drew Harris, received an even more detailed version of the same disclosure. File picture: PA

A senior Garda whistleblower has disputed a version of events given to the Dáil over whether his anonymity was compromised when Helen McEntee was the justice minister.

There have been persistent questions raised about why Ms McEntee sent a protected disclosure her office had received in 2023 back to An Garda Síochána and whether that compromised the whistleblower in any way. 

The disclosure alleging widespread malpractice in the force featured on a recent Prime Time Investigates programme on RTÉ and had been extensively covered in the Irish Examiner.

Taking Leaders’ Questions on Thursday, Ms McEntee, for the first time, provided detail on how and why she had acted on the matter. 

She said that on the same day she received the protected disclosure from Detective Superintendent Brian O’Reilly, the Garda commissioner, Drew Harris, received an even more detailed version of the same disclosure. 

Ms McEntee said this showed that any suggestion she had “exposed (the whistleblower) or that my actions have prejudiced the person in question is simply not correct”.

Det. Supt O’Reilly has told the Irish Examiner that this version of what transpired is entirely flawed.

He pointed out that he had communicated with Mr Harris in the months and years previous to presenting his protected disclosure to the minister and therefore his identity would have been known to the commissioner.

“However, what the minister failed to acknowledge to the Dáil was that the confidential correspondence she received from my solicitor was separate and distinct from the communication that issued to Drew Harris, which was a protected disclosure in its own right and that it should have been treated in complete confidence.”

Det. Supt O'Reilly, who had previously overseen the Garda Technical Bureau, also maintains that Ms McEntee had no legal authority to send his protected disclosure to An Garda Sóochána.

The minister had referred the disclosure to the Office of Protected Disclosure Commission which then appointed the secretary general of the Department of Justice to investigate it, as per the law. 

According to Det. Supt O’Reilly, the minister then “inappropriately interfered with my protected disclosure by removing it from a person appointed under statute and by directing my protected disclosure to Drew Harris even though the former commissioner was directly impugned in it".

Ms McEntee told the Dáil she had at all times adhered to the law in respect of protected disclosures. 

Thursday was the first time she provided any detail on how and why she acted as she did on the matter. However, she has not cited which law she was acting under when she referred the protected disclosure back to An Garda Síochána.