The Government’s record on safeguarding Garda members who turn whistleblower has come under attack amid claims protected disclosures were not investigated properly and those who handled them were left so frustrated they made disclosures of their own.
The issue was raised in the Dáil on Wednesday in advance of a broadcast by RTÉ Investigates in which four current or former Garda personnel have made allegations.
Two of those – Donal Corcoran and Rose Sweeney – were formerly of the Garda Protected Disclosures Unit (PDU). It is alleged they were in effect relieved of their duties in January 2025, after they raised concerns internally.
The claim that senior personnel handling protected disclosures were met with hostility by senior Garda management to the extent they turned whistleblower, is perhaps the most serious new allegation made.
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Other allegations centre on how firearms, ammunition and explosive materials were stored in Garda Headquarters in a haphazard, insecure and dangerous manner. The RTÉ investigation also includes allegations defective holsters were being used by two gardaí who were shot – one fatally, another non-fatally – after concerns about the holsters had already been raised internally.
The allegations about the storage of firearms and other dangerous items, and about the holsters, had emerged before now and have been widely reported on by the media.
However, the allegations that personnel dealing with protected disclosures were met with hostility and put under pressure to close cases more quickly, and so themselves turned whistleblower, are only coming to light now.
It is alleged when a new PDU was created in 2025, there was ultimately no place in it for Corcoran and Sweeney after they had been raising concerns internally, including about the firearms-related problems. Corcoran had made a protected disclosure almost immediately before the new PDU arrangements were put in place and he was not included in the rearranged unit.
In reply to queries, Garda Headquarters told The Irish Times no new PDU was created last year “as alleged by a third party”.
Instead, it said a decision was taken by then Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to transfer the PDU to the ‘Governance and Accountability’ section of the force, which “further strengthened protected disclosures” within the Garda.
As part of that move, the PDU was beefed up, Garda Headquarters said, and a “dedicated, full-time protected disclosure manager at assistant principal level was appointed”.
Before this, “multiple managers were overseeing protected disclosures on a part-time basis” – including Corcoran, Sweeney and others, though Garda Headquarters did not name them – while also carrying out “their separate day jobs”.
Before the PDU was transferred to the ‘Governance and Accountability’ section, the highest rank in the unit was sergeant, though this was increased to inspector as part of the reorganisation, Garda Headquarters said.
In the Dáil, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and Labour leader Ivana Bacik said hostility towards whistleblowers and accountability at the most senior echelons of An Garda Síochána was as bad now as it was following the controversy over Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe a decade ago.
McDonald said the “nub” of the issue was that Corcoran, who was in charge of running the Protected Disclosures Office, “experienced and observed consistent undermining of the independence of the office, active interference at the most senior levels, to the extent that he and another colleague were forced to become whistleblowers themselves”.
She said, when they did, they too “were targeted and penalised” and are no longer in position.
McDonald asked Taoiseach Micheál Martin if any member of Government knew about the issue “or the specific allegations in respect of those who have made protected disclosures”.
She called on him to take action to “establish precisely what happened and what is currently going on within the Garda Protected Disclosures system”.
However, the Taoiseach, who said he had not yet seen the RTÉ programme, accused her of asking “loaded questions” and “trying to make it political”. He said, “I can’t interfere in a protected disclosure.” Martin said McDonald was asking him to “override the entire Whistleblowers Act”.
But Labour leader Bacik said the disclosure system implemented after the Garda McCabe whistleblowing controversy was “not working as intended” and the people “who bravely expose institutional failures are being penalised and even purged”.
Bacik – who, with Labour justice spokesman Alan Kelly met the whistleblowers in the RTÉ documentary last week – said many of their revelations involved “serious failings within Garda firearms practices, in particular, serious issues with defective gun holsters”.
The Minister for Justice and his predecessor need to “respond to a series of important questions about the integrity of the governance system within our national police force and institutional failings”, she said.
Bacik said Jim O’Callaghan had had to correct the record about when his department became aware of allegations about bad firearms practices in the Garda, giving three different responses to Labour’s justice spokesman.
Bacik claimed the Garda “are now in a worse position than in the time of Maurice McCabe”. There were serious questions for the office of the Garda Commissioner and for the Taoiseach about “ministerial knowledge and Government inaction” and what the Minister for Justice and his predecessor do when alerted about defective gun holsters.
She asked what Martin did “when a protected disclosure was made to you on this back in 2022″.
Bacik described the situation as “Kafkaesque” and “Gubu-esque”. If those in charge of protected disclosures were being “victimised and even purged”, that was a matter of concern for Ministers, she said.
But the Taoiseach insisted there was no political interference or intervention, nor could there be. He said the Government would look at “the entirety of what’s being alleged”. It was “very difficult for Government to be responding to loaded questions as to who knew what, when, where, when we amended the legislation” on protected disclosures.
“You’re basically saying Ministers should interfere,” he said.
