Coalition failed to tackle scandal
The Dáil records clearly document the difficulties experienced by opposition Justice spokespeople in the 1998-2001 period in getting the former FF/PD government publicly to acknowledge and confront the extent of the problems which had surfaced in Donegal.
The then Minister for Justice, John O’Donoghue, strenuously and repetitively resisted FG and Labour calls for a tribunal of inquiry and, from 1999 until 2002, contemptuously dismissed Dáil questions raised about events now well documented by Morris.
Michael McDowell was attorney general when the Government in autumn 2001 voted down a motion tabled by me, as Fine Gael’s Justice spokesperson, and Brendan Howlin, as Labour spokesperson, to establish a tribunal of the type it was ultimately embarrassed into establishing in early 2002. Presumably, the Government acted on his advice at the time.
The original terms of reference proposed by the Government for Morris were defective and excluded examination of some events which, due to the intervention of FG and Labour, were ultimately included within its remit.
However, the Government opposed allowing Morris examine the interaction between the garda, the Department of Justice and the Government during the period under inquiry. It is now vital that Morris’s terms of reference be extended to address this area.
Neither John O’Donoghue nor Michael McDowell, from 1999 onwards, can claim to be ignorant of the events in Donegal. Yet it took repetitive Dail exchanges and the passage of three years before the Government agreed to a public inquiry. By that time, much of what Morris has confirmed was public knowledge.
From publication of the two Morris reports, it is clear that the interaction between the Department of Justice, the Government and an Garda Siochána is dangerously dysfunctional.
This requires radical reform not only within the gardaí, but also at departmental and Government level. The Government’s failure properly to address at an earlier stage reports of unacceptable conduct by Donegal gardaí has not only damaged and blighted the lives of the people to whom Michael McDowell is now proposing to apologise, but has aggravated the damage done to them and the exposure of the state (and therefore of taxpayers) to the legitimate claims that can be made by them for substantial damages.
Perhaps when taking pause from his daily media fulminations, the minister for justice might explain what advice, if any, he gave the FF/PD government as attorney general about his concerns as to the legality of garda conduct in Donegal and the state’s exposure to claims for damages, and when such advice was given.
He should also explain the justice in taxpayers having fully to meet the legal expenses incurred by gardaí found to be in serious dereliction of duty while he failed to sponsor legislation to facilitate those to whom he now proposes to apologise so that they could have legal representation before the Morris tribunal, payment for which was guaranteed by the state.
The tragedy of Donegal is that not only have the events described by Morris destroyed the lives of innocent people, they have also undermined the moral and public credibility of the vast majority of decent, dedicated and honourable members of An Garda Siochána.
It is the FF/PD government formed in 1997, most of whose members are current ministers, which is politically responsible for the state failing at an early stage to take the action required to limit the extent of the damage done and to protect the rights of those to whom Minister McDowell now belatedly offers his apologies.
Alan Shatter
Former Fine Gael justice spokesperson
4 Upper Ely Place
Dublin 2
