Shatter stands alone centre stage with Kenny next in the firing line

With Justice Minister Alan Shatter now taking centre stage, the words that will be spoken in the Dáil tomorrow will be crucial, writes Alison O’Connor

HE swept into office and has wowed even his detractors with his performance — from matters as simple as having a sunny disposition, to his courage in taking on the Catholic Church and the contentious abortion issue. On top of that, he saw off the troika.

But the irony is that when it comes to a law and order matter, the leader of Fine Gael and Taoiseach Enda Kenny has shown himself to be seriously inept in his handling of an issue that has gone on for months, and rocked his coalition Government.

Yesterday began with the shock of the standing down of Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, and went on to hold the revelation that there had been widespread recording of phone calls at Garda stations across the State since the 1980s.

Is the Government finally taking prompt action in relation to a policing issue, that is potentially exceptionally serious, or it is using this to act as a handy distraction from the hames it has made of the other Garda related issues in recent months?

Either way it can be viewed in the short term as a somewhat serendipitous development.

The practice was ceased in November 2013 and it would be interesting to know when exactly Justice Minister Alan Shatter was made aware of it.

It rang rather hollow yesterday to hear the Taoiseach say that the about-to-be established independent Garda authority would deal with the policing situation once and for all.

As a result of this we will have an independent, strong, transparent, accountable, professional force, he said.

Really? What have we had thus far, what has his magnificent minister for justice been presiding over since taking office three years ago?

It’s a while ago, but let’s cast our minds back to the origins of all of this, and the original controversy surrounding the possible bugging of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

Back then the official Government line was “move along, nothing to see here”. Now we are promised seismic change.

The Taoiseach put himself further out on a political wing in the Dáil yesterday when he gave his unstinting backing to Alan Shatter “the most reforming minister for justice for the last 50 years”.

We must wait until tomorrow to hear what Mr Shatter has to add. Suffice to say that unless he’s been sent away to a political charm school since we last heard from him on this matter, he is unlikely to bring the emollient approach necessary to rescue this situation — and that’s assuming it is rescuable at this point.

How, for instance, will he address Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore saying it would be “helpful” if he withdrew his remarks that the whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe had not cooperated with the penalty point inquiry?

There was always an expectation that once the troika left town that there would be a resumption of “politics as usual”.

We’ve seen that with members of the Government hardly being able to pass a microphone recently without a promise of a tax cut, and leaving the distinct impression that austerity can be looked on as a bad memory.

But no one could have predicted this sort of a political mess being allowed to build up, and to continue over such a time period. Nor could it have been predicted that it would have been a Cabinet colleague of Mr Shatter, and a fellow Fine Gaeler, who would eventually call a halt to it, as Transport Minister Leo Varadkar did last Thursday when he effectively called Mr Shatter out on the issue.

So now we have a dog’s dinner of a situation.

The Government is facing its most serious political challenge since coming into office.

There is a taoiseach who has shown inexplicably poor judgement, and who has been blatantly undermined by Labour ministers in recent days, despite his public edict that Cabinet members stay quiet. There is a justice minister who brings new meaning to the word obstinate, who is at serious odds with the transport minister.

There is a junior coalition partner on the back foot having failed to take much initiative on this controversy, and is now tying to make up lost ground.

There are also so many investigations and inquiries going on it’s hard to keep track (a good pub quiz question) and a comic fear arising that we are going to run out of retired judges to preside over them.

The standing down of Mr Callinan yesterday has moved the focus on from his use of the word “disgusting” in relation to the two whistleblowers.

Pat Rabbitte described it as his “infelicitous” use of language, and indeed it was unfortunate and ill advised, and Mr Callinan’s failure to withdraw promptly has inevitably led to his departure from office.

But now that he is gone, the man that is left alone at centre stage is Alan Shatter.

If he goes, the next person in the direct firing line is Enda Kenny.

The words that are spoken in the Dáil tomorrow are going to be crucial.