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

Apologies, point Taken and accepted

It's not a position she or anyone else in that role or other senior justice positions should be placed in by circumstances like this. If nothing else, it's unfair to the individual to ask them to adjudicate on something involving someone who was directly or indirectly involved in their selection.

Key roles like that should be wholly independently appointed so that there can be not even a suggestion of a potential bias or conflict of interest, if for no other reason than to not give one side or another something to "moan" about in the first place.

It has gone from "nothing to see here" to an apology in the Dail and from an apology in the Dail to a criminal investigation which has now resulted in a file being sent to the DPP who will decide what to do next. And yet there are FGers trying to convince people that there's nothing to see here.

The fact that the Gardai submitted a file to the DPP is interesting. The lack of a recommendation seems conveniently political in that it is now the DPP's problem. Whatever the DPP does, this matter is highly political and it doesn't particularly matter if it proceeds to Varadkar being charged and prosectuted. The damage to FG has been done and even FF is beating it in the opinion polls. Varadkar's track record with FG has been one of continual loss. He has continually lost seats in every election since he has been leader. He even managed to lose at least two safe FG seat (DBS and one in Wexford during the GE) due to petty feuding. Will FF be getting itchy feet if its polling figures continue to improve at the cost of FG's?

Regards...jmcc

Meanwhile the actual situation: There is no allegation that he leaked a document marked 'CONFIDENTIAL/NOT FOR CIRCULATION' to his buddy, it is a FACT, it wasn't leaked by SF, JC, or anybody else, it was leaked by Varadkar, he admitted it, there should be no confusion there in anybody's mind, no matter how warped their thinking is.

It was investigated by The Gardai, quite properly, they investigated if the leaking of the document broke the law, which is what should happen in any democracy, and they determined that there was some merit in the case and they passed it to the DPP for her consideration, without recommendation - if there was no merit to the case the Gardai would have dismissed it without consideration.

They quite rightly passed it to Ms Pierse who must now make her decision

This is not rocket science

Trumpian???????????

Worth noting that "leak" is not a legal term, or in fact a term that has any weight beyond journalistic hyperbole.

When your Ma tells the neighbours that you're having a baby even though you asked her not to, that is also a "leak".

There's no any argument over whether Varadkar sent the document to MOT. So continuing to shout "leak" as if it's a gigantic scandal is pretty dull. It's with the DPP, let them decide if there's merit in the case. If there's not, then the "leak" is immaterial.

It looks like a jack hammer or pile driver is required!

Of course we know that the Gardai determined that there was some merit in the case, you don't need need to be a legal eagle or a rocket scientist to figure that one out, if the Gardai determined that there was absolutely no merit in the case they would have thrown it out without consideration, Ms Pierse would never have seen it, this is how the system works and it's not rocket sciece.

That could possibly be the case, but if it is it's the Gardai shirking their responsibilities, which is not how the system should work.

Gardai are not legal experts, and this type of offence is as technically complex as you generally get.

So it's most likely a mixture of things, at the core of it would be both the admissions/statements from Varadkar about the fact that he provided the document, and the desire from Garda top brass to avoid a PR issue.

If the Gardai dropped it without going to the DPP, you're basically inviting independent legal experts to publish lengthy commentary about why they shouldn't have dropped it and whether this speaks to favouritism in the force.

Most likely from day 1 the decision had been made to hand this to the DPP for expert oversight no matter what the Gardai believed the outcome to be.

In principle, the Gardai shouldn't defer to the DPP unless they think there's a good case, but as I say in reality the Gardai are not legal experts and often have to defer to the DPP on complex cases.

Varadkar has the benefit of being about the only person who can say they have obtained legal advice on this (everyone else has to keep quiet until the case is resolved), and it seems unwise to dismiss his confidence out of hand, just because he's under the spotlight. If his legal advice told him he was going to be in trouble here, I don't think he would claim innocence and brazen it out. More likely in that case to try and strike a deal, hands up, contrite, error in judgement, and make it go away.

All fine and dandy, but they have spent over a year (?) investigating this, did they decide from day 1 we can't be ar3ed here, this is for the DPP, over to her, and just leave it hanging around the office for a year. If this is what they did then it's an abuse of the system, as is sending a case that they have determined has absolutely no merit to the DPP.