Breath of fresh air as Varadkar tells it like it is
LEO VARADKAR must at times be regarded by some of his colleagues as an awful pain in the neck. He has a compulsion to say what’s on his mind.
That goes against the gut instinct of most politicians in this country, where the default mode is to parrot a pre-programmed line and take great care never to stray off-message. In such a stifled milieu, Mr Varadkar is a breath of fresh air, and so it was that he didn’t shirk the real world once again yesterday.
The Minister for Transport wasasked a question by a reporter that concerned his cabinet brief and he answered in a fulsome manner. Should Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan withdraw his remark at the Public Accounts Committee hearing that the actions of two whistleblowers in his force were “disgusting”?
“I think it is very important to bear in mind that the Garda whistleblowers only released information about people after they tried to use the correct procedures and those procedures failed them and when they did release the information, they did it through Oireachtas members, which is provided for under the Garda act of 2005,” Mr Varadkar replied.
“So yes, I do think that remark should be withdrawn.”
He was speaking before going into a conference on road safety. Addressing the conference, he said the word he would use to describe the Garda whistleblowers was “distinguished”. The remark was greeted with a round of applause from delegates.
Mr Varadkar has effectively put it up to his colleague, Justice Minister Alan Shatter and the Garda commissioner. Mr Callinan has thus far refused to withdraw the remark or to apologise.
Last week, when the Garda Inspectorate report into penalty points was published, Mr Callinan issued a statement to “clarify” his “disgusting” remark at the PAC hearing on January 23. “I want to clarify that my use of that term was not in reference to the character of either Sergeant [Maurice] McCabe or former garda [John] Wilson, but the manner in which personal and sensitive data was inappropriately appearing in the public domain without regard to due process and fair procedure,” he said.
Quite obviously, that wasn’t enough for Mr Varadkar and it’s easy to see why. In the first instance, the context in which Mr Callinan issued his remark at the PAC was plain as day. He was hitting out at the two men’s actions in making allegations against fellow officers. It had nothing to do with disseminating information.
“There is not a whisper anywhere else or from any other member of An Garda Síochána, however, about this corruption, malpractice and other charges levelled against their fellow officers,” he told the PAC. “Frankly, on a personal level, I think it’s quite disgusting.”
No room for manoeuvre there for the commissioner.
Apart from that, Mr Callinan’s apparent disgust at what he alleges is the dissemination of “personal and sensitive data” is curious. Last year, it emerged he handed over to Mr Shatter sensitive personal data about Mick Wallace receiving routine discretion for using his mobile phone behind the wheel. Is Mr Callinan “disgusted” at himself for that carry-on? Nor has he expressed disgust at the swift dissemination of sensitive personal data about Independent TD Clare Daly, hours after she was arrested and handcuffed on suspected drink-driving (it turned out she was well under the limit).
Not alone has the commissioner failed to express disgust at the breach of the Garda Síochána Act by members of the force in that case, but he didn’t express any concern when files in relation to the incident weren’t handed over promptly to the Garda Ombudsman.
On the subject of disseminating sensitive personal data, what role had the commissioner in a story that appeared on the RTÉ website last month claiming that he had issued an order to Sgt McCabe to co-operate with the Garda inquiry into penalty points? The story forced Sgt McCabe to publish a transcript of a conversation that demonstrated that no such order was issued. Unless the author of the RTÉ story was wrong to attribute the order to the commissioner, then Mr Callinan was party to disseminating sensitive personal data that was actually inaccurate to boot. Did he find any of that disgusting?
So even if one were to accept his “clarification” a major question hangs over any basic credibility about the alleged source of his “disgust”.
Mr Varadkar’s comments will have also discommoded both Mr Shatter and the Taoiseach. Mr Shatter has backed Mr Callinan at every twist and turn in the whistleblower saga. Will he back the commissioner again, now that his cabinet colleague has called on Mr Callinan to make what would amount to a groveling apology?
Last weekend, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney became the latest Government member to call for better protection for whistleblowers in light of the treatment meted out to Sgt McCabe and Mr Wilson by the force, and, arguably, by the justice minister.
The worm has turned. The hostility directed at Sgt McCabe and Mr Wilson from both Garda management and the justice minister is increasingly being exposed as little more than persistent efforts to bury allegations of malpractice. The only question that remains is where stands the Taoiseach on the matter?
Where once Sgt McCabe and Mr Wilson stood completely isolated, now that the truth has been uncovered and writ large across the public square, it is Mr Shatter and Mr Callinan who look like they’re being left to their own devices.
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