Kenny and gardaí - Diary ‘error’ raises more questions

Shatter-gate and the story of the Garda whistleblowers refuse to go away.

In the latest chapter of this troubling saga, the Taoiseach has been forced to deny claims of an early morning meeting with then justice minister Alan Shatter just hours before the Garda tapes scandal came to light on the Sunday before former Garda commissioner Martin Callinan stepped down.

According to Sinn Féin, the Taoiseach’s diary, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, includes an entry of a previously unknown meeting with the former minister. If that proved to be accurate, it would mean the Taoiseach met the ex-minister hours before Mr Kenny says he learned about the Garda tapes affair from the attorney general and not the next day as he informed the public.

If what the diary says is true, the Taoiseach would have a lot of explaining to do. His veracity would be under serious question. As it happens, Mr Kenny states unequivocally he had “certainly not” met Mr Shatter as claimed by Sinn Féin in the Dáil. He also apologised for the mistaken diary entry attributed by a spokesman to a “clerical error”.

The official line is that Mr Kenny’s diary is compiled retrospectively and that the meeting actually took place on the following Monday evening and not on the Sunday morning. However, not alone are the days mixed up in the diary, the time of the Shatter meeting is also skewed as the entry reads 7.30am on Sunday, and not 7.30pm on Monday.

An obvious question in the public mind is whether retrospective diary entries are normal? Generally speaking, the Taoiseach’s appointments are arranged well in advance. Otherwise, the busy life of any prime minister would be a shambles. It is also entirely credible, however, that unplanned meetings would be logged later.

But the problem for Mr Kenny is that from the outset, he and Mr Shatter did everything they could to discredit whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe whose allegations have since been vindicated. The Taoiseach also came badly out of the GSOC bugging affair, misleading politicians and the public by claiming the Garda ombudsman was constitutionally obliged to inform Mr Shatter of the incident.

In politics, as in life, self-inflicted contradictions are hard to resolve. Ultimately, it comes down to a question of perception. Those who believe the Taoiseach without demur will accept his version of events as the unadorned truth. In their eyes, Mr Kenny has no case to answer concerning the diary debacle.

But Sinn Féin supporters, and perhaps many others, will accept the story as told by the diary entry, no matter what. Inevitably, the apparent cock-up will also convince conspiracy theorists that another question mark is hanging over Mr Kenny’s head.

Be that as it may, there is no denying that an embarrassing ‘clerical error’ has left yet another large dollop of egg on the collective faces of Messrs Kenny and Shatter, the Coalition at large and the officials of two government departments. In politics, squaring the circle is never straightforward or easy.