Leo Varadkar story in The Village??? - Mod Notes and banned Users in OP updated 16/05

Refuted by whom?

Also, neither the handbook nor the other links were reuted by anyone for at least two pages after them. I never saw the governments secret act mentioned in any of those posts.

You can stand by what you want, but you are wrong.

I don't know what or who the gang of ten means or are, nor do I care, they can refute or claim what they want.

I have refuted the claim that this was in breach of s4 or s5 of the OSA 1963 as amended. If you can advise which other act this may be in breach of I can take a look at those. I can't think of any myself.

What they did was wrong but I had no idea it was happening. In fact I never knew about the sock puppets thread

I will not deny what they did was wrong and I did not know what they had done. I took sometime away from here and I come back to finding out we had our own version of Eoghan Harris on here.

If you choose not to believe me so be it but I know my conscience is clear.

Derp.

I meant who of relevance refuted it. Not an anon on boards or the gang of ten whatever nonsense. I mean where has it been refuted that what Leo did was illegal?

Did you read any further than 1.5?

So you think that Leo got the document from the IMO, and then he decided to leak it? 🤨

For the record, it wouldn't have mattered where he got it from it was still confidential and was to be treated that way.

Believe your own eyes, put your bias aside:

s4. —(1) A person shall not communicate any official information to any other person unless he is duly authorised to do so or does so in the course of and in accordance with his duties as the holder of a public office or when it is his duty in the interest of the State to communicate it.

The next question is: was it "official information"

s2. — “official information” means any secret official code word or password, and any sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information which is secret or confidential or is expressed to be either and which is or has been in the possession, custody or control of a holder of a public office, or to which he has or had access, by virtue of his office, and includes information recorded by film or magnetic tape or by any other recording medium;

I think it could come under that section.

So then we have to ask: was the disclosure "duly authorised"

s4. — (4) In this section “ duly authorised” means authorised by a Minister or State authority or by some person authorised in that behalf by a Minister or State authority.

and "Minister" means

s2. —“Minister” means a member of the Government;

I think we agree that at that point in time Leo was a "Minister" and therefore could authorize disclosure.

Now on to s5 which deals with contracts

s5.—(1) A person who is or has been—

(a) a party to a contract with a Minister or State authority or with any person on behalf of a Minister or State authority, or

(b) employed by such party,

shall not communicate to any third party any information relating to the contract and expressed therein to be confidential.

Leo was not a party to this contract nor was he employed by anyone who was a party to the contract. Therefore he is not covered by this section.

The word contract is not defined so we don't know if a draft contract is covered by that definition.

Even if there was some argument (by biased people) that he was covered by this section somehow, s51(2) Freedom of Information Act 2014 amends the Official Secrets Act 1963 by adding

(2) In a prosecution for an offence under section 5 or 9 of that Act, it shall be a defence to prove that the act to which the charge of the offence relates is authorised, or is reasonably believed by the person charged to be authorised, by this Act.

It is beyond doubt that Leo as head of government reasonably believed he was authorised to disclose the document.

Well, you are wrong, as has been explained many many times on this thread.

Apologies misread your post, your conclusion is correct. However, I do not believe it was necessarily official information.

It's crazy. The gang of ten are gone, but their influence lives on, as the lies that they peddled are repeated ad nauseum.

Sorry, misread your post, you are correct. Will delete accordingly.

I agree that it's not clear it was a confidential document but for the purposes of the post I said it could be as there is a reasonable argument to be made and allowed me to continue my analysis.

It's very clear it was a confidential document, the document itself had confidential watermarked throughout, NAGP were not entitled to review the document. An Irish official who uses confidential information obtained in the course of his or her office, employment, position or business for the purpose of corruptly obtaining a gift, consideration or advantage for himself or herself or for any other person shall be guilty of an offence. Section 7 (2) of the Criminal Justice (Corruption Offences) Act 2018 

If it wasn't a confidential document, I assume Varadkar would have pursued his case with The Village for libel, yet he did not pursue the case.

The issue is, all we have is a few images and text messages from Chay Bowes allegedly from Maitiú Ó’Tuathail, which is not itself proof of any wrongdoing having occurred. Another issue is that this information was sat on for over a year, I think it's important to also question why it took so long to release evidence that was already at hand as far back as April '19.

I think it's fairly obvious to most what has happened here but the Gardai have no interest in actually investigating wrongdoing from politicians. The fact that the investigation is still dragging on is outrageous.

My gut feeling is that nothing will come from this and the investigation will be closed before he's due to re-take office.

That was my whole point.

It was a confidential document. A draft agreement is considered a confidential document and must be marked as such when it is being worked on.

IF the texts released are correct then it was most definitely illegal. DPP can not decide to send a case forward for several reasons. The issue is you can't prove anything from an image of a text message.

What is in no-doubt, is the disturbing numbers of FF and FG members defending alleged cronyism, and then wondering why they will be scrambling for numbers at the next election. It's actually sickening reading the gaslighting by Fine Gael members on this very topic.

"the party of law and order" 🤣