Government has acted properly in wake of Garda bugging controversy

THE politics of the last week reads like a John Le Carre novel.

Don’t be surprised if we all find out in a couple of years’ time that former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan hasn’t actually resigned at all, but is conducting a covert operation within the security forces. A bit like good old George Smiley in the spy novels, he will re-emerge to the grateful thanks of a nation after unearthing some desperate piece of skullduggery in the Garda Fines office.

Seriously, it’s almost impossible to make head or tail of what’s going on. Since all this controversy began, it’s been one conspiracy theory after another. A number of different scenarios have emerged, ranging from the deeply Machiavellian and sinister to the outright nutty. There’s no end of questions, and everyone, it seems, has a different answer.

What’s a bit bothersome about all the answers is that they seem only to be capable of being supplied by people who insist on anonymity. If a government minister says something on the media, his or her point of view is immediately dismissed because “associates of”, or “people close to” or “close friends of” are saying something contrary. I don’t ever remember reading so much about a controversy that has relied so heavily on all these unnamed, but no doubt highly well-informed, sources.

And of course the Government hasn’t been entirely above using those tactics either. Is “a source close to the Government” the same person as a “source close to the Taoiseach”, I wonder?

As a result of all the anonymous spinning, two broad schools of thought have emerged.

The first school of thought is straightforward enough. The system — Government, civil servants, gardaí — have known about the tapes for years. Mr Callinan brought them to the attention of the Government weeks ago — and told the Government that he had brought an end to a practice he had become aware of. So there was no reason whatever for the Attorney General, or the Taoiseach, or the Government, to be surprised about the tapes.

And of course they weren’t surprised — they were thrilled, because they realised immediately that they could use the tapes controversy to get rid of Mr Callinan and save Alan Shatter. That’s why a senior civil servant was dispatched to the Commissioner’s house — he might as well have handed over the traditional bottle of whiskey and the silver-handled pistol.

The second theory is of course more benign to the Government. According to this, the Taoiseach was brought important new information by the Attorney General at the weekend, and acted with immediate and commendable speed. This was the first time the Government ever became aware that a taping system within the Garda could have immeasurable consequences for the administration of justice, and everything they have done since has been in the interests of full accountability and transparency.

Which is the true version of events — the devious, Machiavellian one or the public-spirited one? The answer is we don’t know yet. But I’d be willing to bet that the truth is somewhere between the two. Or that there’s a bit of both in it.

In last weekend’s Sunday’s Independent, Eoghan Harris bracketed me with those who “broadly believe the Coalition’s narrative”. Because I do, he says, there’s all sorts of things I have to believe. Without wishing to misrepresent Mr Harris (always a dangerous thing to do!), all those things boil down to the state of the Government’s knowledge before the conversation at the weekend between the Taoiseach and the Attorney General.

And there’s a key to understanding the state of the Government’s knowledge — the letter written by Mr Callinan.

It’s an odd thing, that letter. All sorts of people seem to have seen it — at least it’s been widely quoted all over the place. But oddly enough, unless I’ve missed it, it doesn’t seem to have been published.

Now, if that letter says Mr Callinan has discovered the existence of tapes, and a practice of using them for wrongful purposes, in such a way that they could corrupt trials or otherwise pervert the course of justice, that would be a truly shocking discovery. If he sent a letter on those lines, it would be unconscionable for anyone in the Department of Justice to withhold the letter from the minister. Heads would have to roll.

On the other hand, suppose the letter said that the Garda Commissioner had boxes of old tapes that he didn’t know what to do with, that he was concerned about the Data Protection Act and its implications for the tapes and the system in operation generally, and that he was looking for the Department’s advice on the matter. In that case, you could readily understand why the letter was dealt with at official level, even though it should have been shown to the minister, as the Commissioner had asked.

But here’s the thing we kind of need to know before we can make a judgement between the conspiracy theory and the cock-up theory. Of course the system would have known that there were recording devices in Garda stations. After all, they had been put there after a public procurement process, and for obvious reasons.

And of course the legal end of the system – Attorney General, Data Protection Commissioner, etc — would be concerned if the system was being managed in a sloppy way, because that would have implications for people’s privacy. But that’s a whole different order of things to the discovery that the possibility exists — in one case and who knows how many others — that the taping system was being used for evidence gathering, bugging, unauthorised surveillance, or any other illegal purpose.

On the face of it, and unless there is evidence to the contrary, that seems to be what the Government discovered last weekend, and what the Government acted on. If Mr Callinan knew, for instance, about the details that are emerging now about the discovery in the Ian Bailey case, and his letter wasn’t sufficiently specific about what that meant, then, whatever he thought he was doing, he certainly wasn’t advising the Government about the full seriousness of the situation.

So, publication of Mr Callinan’s letter would help us all make up our minds. But if we are to believe the conspiracy theory, then we have to believe that a democratically elected government decided to set up a Commission of Inquiry, with full statutory powers, as part of a cover-up, and to protect one of its own. If they did that, it would be the gravest abuse of office since the worst days of Charlie Haughey, and I’d be the first to call for them to be turfed out of office immediately.

I don’t believe they did that. This entire situation, from start to finish, has seen more than its share of cock-ups, mismanagement, and political catastrophes. But, underneath all that, there is something utterly fundamental that we must as citizens be given the full truth about. In setting up a Commission to dig into the truth, the Government has done exactly the right thing.