Michael Clifford: Taylor fails to remember specifics of briefing journalists on McCabe

David Taylor ducked past the cameras outside the entrance to the Disclosures Tribunal yesterday, writes Michael Clifford.

They wanted a shot of the man who is effectively responsible for the inquiry. The superintendent has made the most serious allegations against two former commissioners. He spent the day in the witness box and frequently appeared uncomfortable about what was being put to him.

He did not look like somebody mad eager to have his story told.

He claims Martin Callinan directed him to blacken the character of Sgt Maurice McCabe when Taylor was head of the Garda press office in 2013-14. He also claims that Nóirín O’Sullivan, then Mr Callinan’s deputy, was aware this was going on, and it was all because McCabe was highlighting issues around quashing road safety penalty points.

The character blackening allegedly took the form of telling people that Sgt McCabe had questions to answer in relation to child sexual abuse, which was entirely untrue.

There had been an allegation against Sgt McCabe from a colleague’s daughter in 2006 which had been

investigated and roundly dismissed as having no credibility and the allegation not, in any event, even being criminal in nature.

If the allegations against Mr Callinan and Ms O’Sullivan were found to have substance, it would amount to the most appalling indictment of garda culture at the highest level. But we’re a long way off that, yet.

Both former commissioners and the director of communication in the force, Andrew McLindon, whom Supt Taylor has also implicated, deny any knowledge of a smear campaign.

The only corroboration of any kind about attempts to blacken Sgt McCabe’s character has come from witnesses who have told that Callinan himself had briefed them that Sgt McCabe had questions to answer.

Yesterday, Supt Taylor was brought through the protected disclosure he made in October 2016 about the alleged smear campaign. He was at that time going through his own difficulties.

Having been transferred out of the press office when Mr Callinan resigned in March 2014, he was subsequently suspended and arrested in an investigation into leaks to the media.

Supt Taylor told the tribunal that in mid-2013 the commissioner was seriously discommoded by Mr McCabe’s efforts to highlight abuse in the penalty points system.

“He (Mr Callinan) was getting deeply frustrated that the penalty points issue was not abating but was growing all the time,” Supt Taylor said. “It was reflecting badly on An Garda Síochána and on him and you have to understand that anything that reflects badly on senior garda management is something that cannot in their mind be tolerated.”

Then a story appeared that Mr Callinan himself had had penalty points cancelled.

“He was very annoyed,” the witness said. “He felt it was an impingement on his privacy”.

Around this time, Supt Taylor claims, his boss told him to brief journalists that Sgt McCabe had been investigated for child sexual abuse and he was motivated in highlighting the penalty points issue by revenge against the force.

“I was given specific instructions to take every opportunity with the media to drop it into conversations (with the media) when they bring it (the penalty points issue) up,” he said.

He also said he put it as “there was no smoke without fire, I would drop this in when talking to journalists.”

Supt Taylor says he did as he was instructed. The story was frequently in the news and every time it arose, so too did the annoyance of the commissioner.

“He would remind me when it would break out in the news, ‘are you getting that out?’ He would regularly say ‘do people not know what I have to put up with’.”

Tribunal lawyer Diarmuid McGuinness set about testing the credibility of Supt Taylor’s allegations.

In the first instance, he pointed out that a number of people, including Sgt McCabe and TDs Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, have said Supt Taylor claimed to them he did some of the briefing by text. He denies that he said any such thing.

He was brought through an incident at the conclusion of a Public Accounts Committee meeting in January 2014 when the chairman John McGuinness approached Mr Callianan.

Supt Taylor says he heard Mr Callinan describe Sgt McCabe to Mr McGuinness as a “kiddie fiddler”. This corroborates Mr McGuinness’s recollection, although Supt Taylor did not include this incident in his protected disclosure. Much of the afternoon was spent delving into the various contacts Supt Taylor had with different journalists, and whether he briefed them against Sgt McCabe.

In February 2014, INM journalist Paul Williams interviewed Ms D, the woman at the centre of the discredited 2006 allegation against Sgt McCabe.

Supt Taylor claims Williams rang him from Ms D’s house and said that Sgt McCabe had ruined this woman’s life and that he, Mr Williams, would be writing a negative story about Sgt McCabe. Mr Williams says he rang Supt Taylor just to confirm details of the 2006 investigation.

Supt Taylor told the tribunal he texted Martin Callinan to let him know about the prospect of a negative story on

McCabe. He says he also texted Nóirín O’Sullivan.

“She replied ‘perfect’ and then she rang me,” he said.

“I just told her that Paul Williams had rang me and he’d been up to the house, and had told me how that family had been destroyed and he was going to write a negative article about Sgt McCabe.”

Supt Taylor has provided a list of nine journalists whom he claims to have briefed negatively about McCabe. These are Paul Reynolds and John Burke, both of RTÉ, Paul Williams (INM), Conor Lally (Irish Times), Michael O’Toole (The Star), John Mooney (Sunday Times), and Cormac O’Keeffe, Danny McConnell, and Juno McEnroe, all of the Irish Examiner.

All of the journalists either reject that they were briefed or refuse to confirm or deny in on the basis of journalistic principles.

In his favour is his decision to incriminate himself in his allegations. But beyond that, he has cited no solid corroboration for what he says was being done.

Through detailed questioning yesterday he failed to mention one instance where he could remember the specifics of briefing a journalist about Sgt McCabe.

Yesterday was his direct evidence. His evidence continues today.