Trust, belief and faith in our justice system is what’s at stake

WHAT’S at stake is the most fundamental issue: trust, belief and faith in the justice system.

Not the warnings of an excited opposition politician nor the learned insight of a leading academic. They’re the words of the political leader of the country.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny suggested the controversies of recent months were of less gravity than the recording of phone conversations into and out from garda stations — a practice, going on for decades, which now jeopardises current, pending and possibly past prosecutions and civil cases.

The matters are so disturbing that within a day — that’s right one day — Mr Kenny dispatched a high-level emissary to the Garda commissioner to “apprise him on my view of the gravity” of the matter.

For a man who urged people to await the findings of the inquiries into the other Garda-related controversies before rushing to judgment, the Taoiseach acted with extraordinary speed to confront Martin Callinan about the matter.

The following morning, Mr Callinan resigned as commissioner. He didn’t cite the meeting with the secretary general, but said he was leaving for the good of the force and for his own family.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin accused the Taoiseach of “effectively sacking” the commissioner — an attack Mr Kenny said he “deplored”.

Mr Kenny said he had to take action — including the setting-up a Commission of Investigation — after meeting Attorney General Máire Whelan last Sunday, who briefed him about the recording of calls and a related, ongoing legal action.

It is extraordinary then that the Minister for Justice was not informed of these very concerns by his own department officials. That is what he contended to the Dáil yesterday, repeatedly.

He maintained he was neither briefed about a letter couriered by Mr Callinan to his secretary general Brian Purcell on March 10 last — never mind see it — nor was he briefed about previous and subsequent contacts and meetings involving his officials on this very matter.

So we have a situation where, on the one hand, senior and highly experienced members of his own department apparently didn’t think this issue warranted their minister being informed, and, on the other hand, where the Taoiseach acted with “great speed” (in the words of Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin) and confronted the police boss.

Mr Shatter outlined to the Dáil the level of contacts [see timeline for detail] his officials had on this, most serious, issue. They were informed first last February, before Mr Callinan’s letter.

The day after the letter arrived, on March 11, the Department of Justice held a high-level meeting with the Garda commissioner and the attorney general’s office in which this issue was discussed. But still Mr Shatter didn’t know anything.

The minister told the Dáil he was out of the country between March 15 to March 21. No urgent emails or phone calls during that time. Nor was he told on his return. Mr Shatter said he was not informed until 6pm last Monday and only got Mr Callinan’s letter at lunchtime on Tuesday. It was “as simple as that”, he said.

Former Garda chief superintendent John O’Brien yesterday told the Sean O’Rourke show that the contention the minister was never informed was “inconceivable” and “incredible”.

He described Mr Callinan’s letter as “extraordinary” and said that “phones would have been hopping”. Mr O’Brien said that even the ombudsman’s report of June 2013, touching on this issue, would have raised a “red flag, no two ways about it”.

The Taoiseach is right on one thing. This is the most fundamental issue of trust and faith in the justice system. Starting with what on earth was going on at the Department of Justice.