Maurice McCabe: An extraordinary career and huge service to the State by illustrating wrongs in the force

Retirement is the only option for Maurice McCabe, but he retires knowing a tribunal determined not just that he did his job properly, but that there was a campaign to destroy his reputation because he exposed wrongdoing in the force, writes Special Correspondent Michael Clifford.

Maurice McCabe’s retirement from An Garda Síochána today brings the curtain down on one of the most extraordinary careers seen in the force.

His departure comes two weeks after the publication of the Disclosures Tribunal, which was followed by apologies from An Taoiseach, the minister for justice and the Garda commissioner.

In the tribunal report, Judge Charleton described Sgt McCabe as having done “considerable service” for the State. The judge also noted that he is “a genuine person who at all times has had the interests of the people of Ireland uppermost in his mind”.

The report and the reaction from the highest echelons of the State have brought a sense of closure for Sgt McCabe and his family. He can leave now knowing that a tribunal has determined not just that he did his job properly, but that there was a campaign to destroy his reputation because he exposed wrongdoing within the force.

The result from the tribunal serves in its own way as an acknowledgement to him and his family of the pain they endured for more than a decade.

In theory, his vindication and the opinion of the current commissioner that he had done a good job should have opened up the chance for him to continue on in the force.

In reality, going back would present a massive challenge: Would there be embers of resentment towards him in some quarters? What of career advancement? If he were to be promoted would it be perceived as unfair by competitors? And, crucially, has the job on the ground changed in any meaningful way since the time he made his complaints?

Despite the Cavan-based sergeant’s vocational love of the job, there was no way back. And after a decade of being under pressure, he and his wife quite obviously came to the conclusion that the best thing for them and their children at this stage is a clean break.

Maurice McCabe wanted to be a guard since he was a child. In 1985, he joined at the second time of asking. The previous year he had been rejected because of his height.

Over the following 19 years he would make steady rather than spectacular progress through the ranks. He served in Drogheda, Dundalk, Bailieboro and Clones as a guard until in 2000 he was appointed sergeant. Two years later he was elevated to sergeant-in-charge of the Clones station.

What marked him out was an appetite for work, according to later testimony from those who knew him at the time, particularly superior officers. In 2004 he was approached and asked to apply for the job of sergeant-in-charge in Bailieboro, Co Cavan.

Bailieboro was a tough brief. It was the main station in a busy district of seven stations. Despite repeated requests, Bailieboro wasn’t provided with an inspector. The superintendents who served as district officers came and went — McCabe served under six in the space of three-and-a-half years. All of this meant that a major responsibility fell back on him.

He got on with the job and received major commendations from the first four supers he served under. Then came an allegation from the daughter of a colleague which Sgt McCabe has always believed was associated with his work.

An investigation dismissed the allegation out of hand, but the whole affair and its aftermath left him shaken. A year later, frustrated at how standards had been slipping he made an official complaint.

That was in January 2008. Little was he to know that his life would be irrevocably changed over the following years. He had broken the code of omerta in the force, and when the pressure came on he didn’t back down.

Judge Peter Smithwick, in a tribunal unrelated to Sgt McCabe, had opined that in An Garda Síochána “loyalty is prized above honesty”.

That comment was coincidentally published in a report in 2013, at a time when Sgt McCabe was enduring the cost of putting honesty ahead of loyalty.

An internal Garda inquiry upheld some of his complaints in 2010, and dismissed others but no effort at reform in Bailieboro was undertaken.

To add insult to injury, the divisional officer posted a notice in every station in Cavan/Monaghan dismissing the allegations and giving the impression that the complaints had been groundless.

Seven years after that was posted, retired chief superintendent Colm Rooney finally admitted at the Disclosures Tribunal that posting the notice had been a mistake.

A similar routine developed in relation to the complaints Sgt McCabe made about road policing in 2012. An internal investigation largely dismissed the complaints.

It was only when outside agencies examined both issues that the true picture emerged. Sgt McCabe was vindicated in both cases. Along the way, he and his family paid a high price for refusing to leave well enough alone.

That has been acknowledged in the apologies from the Government and the new commissioner. It has also been reflected in the Disclosures Tribunal report which ruled that a “campaign of calumny” had been perpetrated against him by former commissioner Martin Callinan and former garda press officer, Superintendent David Taylor.

The landscape in which An Garda Síochána operates has been changed utterly as a result of Sgt McCabe’s actions, his persistence, and the resistance to his efforts to highlight poor and shoddy work.

Two ministers for justice and two commissioners left office along the way. The current commissioner, Drew Harris, is the first to be recruited from outside the State. One factor in his appointment is widely regarded to have been that he carried no baggage from within the force.

A policing authority oversees the force. A commission on the future of policing was established and reported last month. The Garda ombudsman GSOC has greater powers than was the case prior to Sgt McCabe’s case hitting the public square. And one can only hope that ultimately all of this will lead to positive change in a cultural manner within the force. Only time will tell that.

Before Maurice McCabe felt he had no choice but to highlight what was wrong on the job, he was just a garda trying to do his best in very difficult circumstances.

One assessment of his performance in that regard came from former assistant commissioner Derek Byrne at the O’Higgins commission, which investigated Sgt McCabe’s complaints of malpractice.

“Sgt McCabe is regarded as a highly efficient sergeant, competent,” Byrne told Judge Kevin O’Higgins.

The judge added: “That assessment is shared by the commission.”

Shared also, one suspects, by most of the country. Sgt Maurice McCabe was efficient in serving An Garda Síochána, and when the time came he was efficient in serving the State by illustrating what was wrong within the force.

It was an extraordinary career.