Should another Garda Commissioner resign?

blanch152

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Don't forget the Greens.

True, they need to apologise as well.

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

Why were you asking me a question as if I would have some special knowledge about the answer?



I found your question strange as I could not think of any reason why Varadkar might need to apologise to Shatter, which is why I responded the way I did. If you could explain your line of thinking as to why Varadkar would need to do so, maybe someone else could help you.

The fact is that Shatter has been vindicated repeatedly by the courts, and I note you are not disputing that. Who may or may not need to apologise to him is a secondary issue and Varadkar is well down that list.

The government forced him to resign. Has the government apologised/addressed this?

Hitman3000

blanch152 wrote:

Actually, it would be incumbent on Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein and the likes of Mick Wallace to apologise as they were most cutting about Alan Shatter and have been shown in the courts to be wrong.

Did you forget Shatter using private and confidetional information passed to him by the Commissioner to score points off a political opponent on a national tv programme. Hardly the standard of an MOJ imo.

blanch152

FrancieBrady wrote: »

The government forced him to resign. Has the government apologised/addressed this?

I will answer your question once you confirm you accept that Shatter has been vindicated. If you dispute that, this conversation is going nowhere fast.

I am not going down a rabbit-hole just to pop up the other side to see we are back where we started.

blanch152

Hitman3000 wrote: »

Did you forget Shatter using private and confidetional information passed to him by the Commissioner to score points off a political opponent on a national tv programme. Hardly the standard of an MOJ imo.

If I remember that correctly, he was accused of breaching the Data Protection Act and was later vindicated

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2017/1109/918656-shatter/

FrancieBrady

blanch152 wrote: »

I will answer your question once you confirm you accept that Shatter has been vindicated. If you dispute that, this conversation is going nowhere fast.

I am not going down a rabbit-hole just to pop up the other side to see we are back where we started.

Why would I ask 'if Leo had vindicated/apologise'd to Shatter if I didn't think he was owed one from the government that forced him to resign.

I do think he was vindicated.

McMurphy

blanch152 wrote: »

If I remember that correctly, he was accused of breaching the Data Protection Act and was later vindicated

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2017/1109/918656-shatter/

Something snake like, lousy and unprofessional doesn't necessarily have to be unlawful.

It was a silly move by shatter which undoubtedly contributed to his demise.

Hitman3000

blanch152 wrote:

If I remember that correctly, he was accused of breaching the Data Protection Act and was later vindicated

He still put private information passed by the then Commissioner to him into the public domain to cause embrassment to a political rival.

blanch152

Hitman3000 wrote: »

He still put private information passed by the then Commissioner to him into the public domain to cause embrassment to a political rival.

If it was private information, that would be a breach of the Data Protection Act, and an invasion of privacy for which Wallace could sue.

And we know Wallace is good for suing, as he has tried to keep details of his tax evasion and his "borrowing" of his workers' pensions out of the national newspapers.

Hitman3000

blanch152 wrote:

If it was private information, that would be a breach of the Data Protection Act, and an invasion of privacy for which Wallace could sue.

You can labour that point all you want. But Shatters behaviour demeaned his position and showed him for the petty individual he is and demonstrated he was not fit for the position he held at the time.

McMurphy

Hitman3000 wrote: »

You can labour that point all you want. But Shatters behaviour demeaned his position and showed him for the petty individual he is and demonstrated he was not fit for the position he held at the time.

This.

To put it in context, I've seen posters on this very site get carded for dragging up another post from a different forum, or from years ago by someone they are debating with as it was deemed to be petty/cheap shop/dragging through their history/scraping the barrel.

For the minister of justice to do it was petty in the extreme.

Letting someone like Wallace be semi responsible for his own demise must have been fairly galling for Shatter.

McMurphy

Mick Clifford on NT again this morning, reckons (contrary to what is being suggested on this thread) that John McGuinness came across quite strongly yesterday, said there was a few, minor discrepancies in his accounts, e.g. when he told M.M about what was indulged to him. (Hardly ground shattering tbh)

Asked about the notes he took, McGuinness replied that when you are asked to meet the commissioner, and when he sat in the front seat of my car, and made the sort of accusations he was making about a particular member of the Force (we can assume this was McCabe) your first instinct is to get the hell out of there.

Mentioning texts between Callinan and Brian Purcell, with a mention on the various phones that he described as 'were unretrievable".

And John Deasy, getting a specific mention, recounting how he had a conversation with NOS, and Martin Callinan, and how very derogatory comments were made about McCabe, and how he told he was not to be trusted (again with molestation accusations)

Callinan is apparently denying he told the same lie to various people.

\sarcasm Tough one to decide who has more integrity. /sarcasm.

James Brown

Hitman3000 wrote: »

He still put private information passed by the then Commissioner to him into the public domain to cause embrassment to a political rival.

Ah but it wasn't a tweet* read by a third party alleged to have been written by him, so no harm, (*see Sean Gallagher).

Phoebas wrote: »

I was thinking of a different Justice minister altogether - but I guess the fact that we've lost multiple Justice ministers before tribunals got to report just underscores the point.

Unfortunate my post could be talking about the current too, re competence.

“missed the significance of the email”
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/charlie-flanagan-under-pressure-over-mccabe-emails-1.3308916

I mean it were only regarding an issue of a national high profile nature.

Almost 20% of all garda superintendents are currently under investigation by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, according to their representative association.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2018/0411/953600-post-brexit-policing/

I mean if I were a high level politician, maybe MoJ, I'd pipe up a little on this supposed first world state body.

Phoebas

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Unfortunate my post could be talking about the current too, re competence.

Or any other FG minister past, present or future.

tayto lover

Anyone know what happened at the Tribunal today as there's nothing online as yet?

James Brown

Phoebas wrote: »

Or any other FG minister past, present or future.

Claims of political opportunism aside, Deasy's blurb yesterday will benefit the nation.
To be fair to Varadkar, he seemed to have all the answers for everyone else's department, now he just keeps the head down.

I would expect the MoJ to pop his head up considering the rotten state of the states policing body.

McMurphy

tayto lover wrote: »

Anyone know what happened at the Tribunal today as there's nothing online as yet?

Not sitting today Tayto.

Back tomorrow, and ICRE who, but Mick Clifford said the witnesses would be pretty big deals.

Personally, I'll be amazed if Callinan is exonerated, like we have TDs from different partys, ex members of the Force, claiming he made the same comments to them, as regards McCabe interfering with kids.

What would be the chances of them all telling a collaborative lie?

tayto lover

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Not sitting today Tayto.

Back tomorrow, and ICRE who, but Mick Clifford said the witnesses would be pretty big deals.

Personally, I'll be amazed if Callinan is exonerated, like we have TDs from different partys, ex members of the Force, claiming he made the same comments to them, as regards McCabe interfering with kids.

What would be the chances of them all telling a collaborative lie?

Very little chance i'd say of them all lying. Callinan seems to be a nasty piece of work.
I'm just wondering what's in it for them though as they usually have something to gain from it. They're politicians after all.

McMurphy

tayto lover wrote: »

Very little chance i'd say of them all lying. Callinan seems to be a nasty piece of work.
I'm just wondering what's in it for them though as they usually have something to gain from it. They're politicians after all.

Perhaps it's just possible that they refused to stay silent about a decent, (by all accounts) honest man being the victim of a smear campaign, with some, if not the most repulsive false accusations possible being made against them.

Yeah, Callinan seems like a nasty piece of work, but my fear is that it went higher than Callinan.

It certainly appears that at least one MOJ was made aware of the strategy to discredit McCabe, but to what level isn't clear.

It'll all come out in the wash though.

James Brown

Deasy won't be doing his career within FG any favours.

hatrickpatrick

blanch152 wrote: »

I am getting fed up of proposals which seek to abolish the innocent until proven guilty premise

In what way have I suggested doing this?

and impose draconian penalties on people for something which isn't a crime.

Implying that never in human history has society created a new criminal offence regarding something which prior to this was not considered a crime...? You do realise, for instance, that there was no such thing as a criminal offence of "driving while intoxicated" before driving was a thing, right?

I someone steals my phone, I am not criminally negligent. If my phone is upgraded and I wipe and carefully destroy my old phone, I am not criminally negligent. If my phone is lost despite me taking great care of it, I am not criminally negligent.

If your phone is the subject of a criminal investigation and you tamper or dispose of it in any of the aforementioned ways, you are in fact guilty of a crime in many jurisdictions, and rightly so. We're not talking about "phones" here, we're talking about "pieces of evidence relating to an investigation into potentially criminal matters". Massive difference there. These phones were items of interest in an ongoing investigation. In that specific context, the fact that they have disappeared should absolutely be regarded as a criminal offence on the part of a named individual with responsibility for the safeguarding of such evidence.

Let's take a hypothetical: Suppose you were accused of committing a crime which you hadn't committed. Now suppose you had an alibi, and that alibi was backed up by a phone containing evidence that you were in the company of others, in a different location, at the time the alleged offence took place. Suppose the Gardai had taken a dislike to you early on and strongly suspected you of committing this offence.

Are you seriously telling me that if you were mounting your defence in court and were told that the one piece of evidence proving your alibi had mysteriously disappeared from the custody of people with a vested interest in screwing up your alibi, you would be opposed to an individual in the relevant Garda station being held criminally responsible for negligence pertaining to your trial and the safeguarding of crucial evidence for your defence?

Water John

Well, a telling parallel within this case is, the computer that went missing. Remember the big attempt to tie this to McCabe, because he was the station sergeant.

emo72

"Celebrity" Gerald Kean evidence today. I can't see how Callinan can come out of this unscathed now.

McMurphy

emo72 wrote: »

"Celebrity" Gerald Kean evidence today. I can't see how Callinan can come out of this unscathed now.

Trending on Twitter, Kean reckons he was 'used' by Callinan.

Mr.Micro

Johnny Dogs wrote: »

Trending on Twitter, Kean reckons he was 'used' by Callinan.

Used?
Lol.....a Sophisticated solicitor, socialite, media hungry. That is funny.

Water John

Callinan is adding Kean to his list of liars.

Mr.Micro

Water John wrote: »

Callinan is adding Kean to his list of liars.

Callinan has all the top credentials needed to be a top politician in Ireland. The power he had/has is truly wrong.

James Brown

Kean says Callinan lied to him on a number of occasions regarding McCabe. If proven, could this be sufficient to show, in the least, the Garda commissioner was smearing his name? We already know lower ranks did. If so, how many levels of how many Garda need to be shown, before, let's say a Minister in charge of the Justice department? Or any body with power for that matter, steps up to reorganise and clean up the Garda? Or will it be, wait and see, give lip service to following recommendations and forget about it? Be nice to see some action in the positive.

Matt Barrett

Matt Barrett wrote: »

We already know lower ranks did.

Really?

James Brown

bubblypop wrote: »

Really?

Yes, you not been following? Evidence was misplaced and McCabe blamed. He was wrongly accused of child abuse. Then we've the ongoing issues and now the commissioner accused of lying yet again. That's two politicians, arguably from separate parties and a solicitor not to mention McCabe himself.