Mick Clifford: Partial view of policing scandals lacks any justice

Any evaluation of the premature departure from office of Frances Fitzgerald and Noirin O'Sullivan may fit neatly into a particular narrative but it cannot be done solely based on the findings of the Disclosures Tribunal, writes Mick Clifford

Nóirín O’Sullivan (left) resigned as Garda commissioner in September 2017 under the weight of a welter of scandals. Three months later, Frances Fitzgerald (right) was gone as minister for justice, a casualty of the fall-out from the most politicised of Garda scandals, the Maurice McCabe affair. File photo: RollingNews.ie

At times, we have a strange way of dealing with accountability in Irish public life. First there is the resignation. Then, a few years later, somebody sits back and takes a long view and declares, “ah now, that was out of order”. Bring on the rehabilitation.

One example of this was on view in last Saturday’s Irish Times. A full page was given over to a long treatise of how two women who had to prematurely depart high office have ultimately been “vindicated”.