Two victories for relentless policework: Cases show best side of gardaí

EVEN the most ardent, one-eyed champion of An Garda Síochána would have to concede that the force’s credibility took a battering over the penalty points scandal and how two whistleblowers — Sergeant Maurice McCabe and former Garda John Wilson — were treated so poorly by the force’s officer corps. 

That the men have been vindicated underlines the hubris that shaped the force’s circle-the- wagons culture and a modus operandi that sometimes put loyalty to colleagues before honesty.

The performance given by former Commissioner Martin Callinan at an Oireachtas committee hearing seemed from a different age, when authority imagined itself unaccountable and free to be autocratic.