Michael Clifford: Wild goose chases as whistleblower is ignored

Can you know somebody actually but not officially?

Have you heard about the police investigation that waited for witnesses to come to them rather that the investigators going to interview people who may be of assistance?

The Disclosures Tribunal has provided insights into various strands of garda culture over the last year few years, and another fascinating nugget was served up yesterday.

The long thread that has led all the way to Dublin Castle has got wrapped in knots along the way. The internal garda investigation into ticket-fixing in 2012-13, a practice Sergeant McCabe had highlighted, was one.

If that had been done thoroughly, it might well have been the end of Sgt McCabe’s travails.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t.

Heading up that investigation was Assistant Commissioner John O’Mahoney, an experienced and highly regarded cop, who was brought through some of the interesting aspects of the investigation.

Sgt McCabe, who made the complaints, wasn’t contacted. If he had been he could have pointed to where there were serious abuses.

He could have directed the O’Mahoney investigation — which included five chief superintendents — to locate the abuses on the Garda computer Pulse system. The Co Cavan-based sergeant is not an IT specialist.

He maintained that it would be a simple exercise to uncover these abuses, but if he had been contacted, the O’Mahoney inquiry would then be in official possession of the relevant information.

Except, officially, Sgt McCabe was unknown. AC O’Mahoney told the tribunal that he knew for a fact around December 2012 that Sgt McCabe was the whistleblower.

He even named Sgt McCabe in a preliminary report of his investigation. Why didn’t he contact the whistleblowing sergeant, ask him how he had come to the conclusion there was all this abuse going on?

“I wasn’t told directly but there was a strong sense that there were protections around the person who had made the allegations,” he said, referencing the whistleblower charter as it then was.

“I set out at all times to protect the identity of the whistleblowers and to treat them (the complainants) as anonymous claims.”

Maurice McCabe

How calling him in to co-operate would impinge on the protection of Sgt McCabe’s alleged anonymity is unclear.

The result was that the O’Mahoney report did not uncover the extent of the ticket-fixing corruption.

The high-powered investigation couldn’t find out what was obvious to Sgt McCabe.

While they couldn’t bring themselves to contact the whistleblower, because they didn’t officially know him, they were mad eager to talk to Maurice McCabe’s uncle, with whom he had fallen out.

Two subsequent investigations into the same matter, conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Garda Inspectorate found far more abusive practices than the O’Mahoney report did.

Both the later investigations interviewed Sgt McCabe, which may or may not be a coincidence.

In January 2013, while the O’Mahoney investigation was beavering away, AC O’Mahoney received an email from Assistant Commissioner Derek Byrne referencing phonecalls from a “Bernard McCabe” who described himself as an “uncle of the whistleblower”. This man said he had information about his nephew.

Why this information was being passed to AC O’Mahoney, rather than a local officer in Co Cavan is a mystery.

In any event, the following day, O’Mahoney mailed chief superintendent Padraig Kennedy, one of the top investigators in the force, who was also working on the penalty points investigation.

“You should get in contact with Mr McCabe and listen to what he has to offer,” the email read.

John O’Mahoney.

The language is fascinating. Mr McCabe intimated he may have had complaints about the conduct of his garda nephew. How this could be interpreted as possibly being something “to offer” is anybody’s guess.

Tribunal lawyer Kathleen Leader was curious as to why one of the top cops in the country was dispatched to talk to this Mr McCabe, the uncle of the anonymous whistleblower who wasn’t anonymous in reality.

“Why pick such a senior officer to speak to a civilian in matters about Sergeant McCabe?” she asked AC O’Mahoney.

“The thought process was that Bernard McCabe had contacted us, and said he had information and wanted to impart that information and I felt Padraig Kennedy (was the man to go)…We went down there with an open mind.”

The complaints were discovered to be unfounded and “wild”.

Even Judge Peter Charleton had trouble getting his head around the deployment of garda resources.

“It seems odd to send down the likes of chief superintendent Kenney to interview a simple man sitting in a cottage by the lake… he’s not a Seanachai.”

Despite this intrepid sleuthing by the lake, there was a second visit to Bernard McCabe the following year. On that occasion, the visit was conducted by a senior detective superintendent who was at the time involved in a serious murder investigation.

To chase a wild goose once is a misfortune, to do so twice is downright careless.

Sgt McCabe’s lawyer, Michael McDowell put it thus: “I’m suggesting it was wholly extraneous and irrelevant to the investigation you were carrying out.

Michael McDowell and Maurice McCabe at the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Castle. Photo: Gareth Chaney Collins

"And by the time the second interview took place it was abundantly clear it had nothing to do with your investigation.”

The witness didn’t agree. “He had again made contact and a decision was made to see him. It wasn’t for any reason to dig dirt on Sgt McCabe as was suggested,” he replied.

Sometime later, and unconnected to AC O’Mahony’s investigation, Bernard McCabe was visited once more, this time by an assistant commissioner in December 2016.

AC Michael Finn reported after his fruitless visit that Mr McCabe “had issues” with his nephew.

Three visits by three high-ranking gardaí. The public can be reassured.