Nóirín O’Sullivan: will the force be with her?

Nóirín O’Sullivan must be relieved to have emerged from the past week still in the role of Garda commissioner: it’s an outcome that seemed far from certain at some points in the past seven days.

She will want to move on after a trying time, but the battering may have left her vulnerable to any more heavy blows, which could prove fatal in the event of additional revelations.

The controversy that has engulfed her, and cast doubt on her new-broom regime, relates to what was said behind closed doors at the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation, which looked into matters relating to the Cavan-Monaghan division of the force after allegations made by the whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe.

The Examiner newspaper obtained a partial transcript of a conversation that suggested O'Sullivan had sent her barrister Colm Smyth SC into the commission to attack McCabe's character and motivation.

The transcript also suggested that two Garda members would give evidence that McCabe told them, in the same conversation, that he was making his complaints because he had a personal grievance against a senior officer.

When McCabe produced a secret recording, however, it seemed to contradict the two would-be witnesses, who never gave evidence.

In a transcript published by RTÉ it emerged that Smyth had later clarified his instructions from the commissioner. Smyth said he was asked to “challenge the motivation and credibility” of McCabe. He said it had been his mistake to say he was challenging McCabe’s “integrity”. Crucially, he suggested that he was challenging McCabe’s motivation and credibility in the context of McCabe’s allegations of corruption against senior officers at the commission.

And therein arises a very significant point, the ventilation of which is unpopular in a public debate where the lone whistleblower raging against the Garda culture is regarded as the hero and anyone else in a Garda uniform is regarded as part of the problem.

McCabe has been very poorly treated by the Garda. He has been bullied and maligned and called a liar, and his actions have been branded “disgusting”. But although the thrust of many very serious allegations he made has been born out, and the specific detail of others has proven to be accurate, he was not a perfect witness.

All of McCabe's allegations of corruption were unfounded, for example. Mr Justice O'Higgins rejected his complaint of corruption on the part of the former commissioner Martin Callinan, as he did McCabe's allegation that the former minister for justice Alan Shatter had not moved to address his whistleblowing. And an allegation that McCabe was assaulted by a senior officer – a very serious charge – was not upheld.

So against the backdrop of having to fight allegations of corruption from a man whose claims did not always check out, is it not reasonable to expect those being accused to defend themselves robustly?

Testing evidence

One of the reasons that evidence in certain commissions of investigation is heard in private is to allow one party to accuse or push at another – who is also allowed to push back – without reputations being shredded publicly. During this process facts emerge and the head of the commission tests witnesses’ evidence.

If, in a legal setting from which a report will be published, one were vehemently denying a serious allegation (especially one that the commission eventually rejected), would one not question the accuser’s motivation for making the allegation and his or her credibility in making it?

O’Sullivan is entitled to test allegations against members of the force. The question is whether she went too far in doing so.

Much of the controversy surrounds the attitude that O’Sullivan, through her barrister, took to McCabe at the commission. At the centre of it is a perception that McCabe’s allegations were simply not welcomed by the Garda force, especially Garda headquarters.

McCabe’s allegations about the cancellation of penalty points struck at the culture of the Garda – at a sense of entitlement among a small number of members, an idea that they could do as they pleased.

His accusations that certain serious crimes were not investigated and that victims were treated poorly put the Garda’s work nationally, not just in Cavan-Monaghan, on trial.

What cost Callinan his job was his use of the word “disgusting” to describe the actions of the whistleblower. That’s why so much turns on the words that O’Sullivan’s barrister used in his adversarial approach to McCabe at the commission, words like “integrity” and “malice”.

For O’Sullivan this crisis is also a test of her commissionership and whether it represents a fresh era in policing.

The Garda has staggered from one crisis to another since the final report of the Morris tribunal, into allegations of corruption in the Donegal division, a decade ago.

For most of that time recruitment to the Garda has been suspended, to save money, and resourcing generally has been in a tailspin. There has been a chronic shortage of Garda cars. Overtime has been cut to the bone, and stations have been closed. New rosters have not worked, and morale has crashed because pay and resources have been reduced and workloads increased.

There have been 42 reports into the Garda since that final Morris tribunal report, with almost 800 recommendations. Many officers believe that a culture of “diagnosis as cure” has crept in. This involves people lining up to tell the Garda what’s wrong with their organisation, and assuming that changes will be made immediately, but nobody giving the force the resources even to do their basic jobs properly, let alone reform the organisation.

Some officers who spoke to The Irish Times believed O'Sullivan was the right person for the job. "Since she came in a lot of people I'd know outside the job would come up to me and comment about her," says one senior officer. "They think she sounds very good doing interviews, that she's a really good speaker and she represents us well. And they think it's great to have a woman at the top."

The same officer says that, although those qualities do not solve crime, or indeed change a policing culture, it is imperative, with the Garda under so much pressure, to have a public face that looks and sounds professional, dynamic and confident.

Others insist that O’Sullivan has delivered change, pointing to her quick work in changing the rules about who can cancel penalty points and in setting up an audit – which she appointed McCabe to – to check new allegations he had made that the changed system was still being abused.

The same officers also believe that the new approach to Garda training in Templemore, where critical thinking is encouraged, is a major cultural change.

“We have seen things like new cars coming on stream, and she’s spoken out about the technology being 20 years out of date and needing more recruitment. How far more do people expect her to go? She’s pushing for us.”

Others say that O’Sullivan has been a divisive commissioner and that her early transfer of 100 officers between jobs turned many against her. Some gardaí believed the action was too controlling.

Paranoia?

A number of Garda officers say the top ranks of the force, from assistant-commissioner level up, are split into two groups, and have developed unprecedented levels of paranoia at the organisation’s Phoenix Park headquarters.

Several officers also say that there is now a climate of control; one describes that control as extreme. Another says: “A lot of crimes that are going on are not getting publicity. The people and the media are not being told about them. And there have been lots of investigations into other stories in the papers, the stories headquarters hasn’t said anything about. You wouldn’t have really had that before, that hardened attitude to really control the information.”

The relationship between Garda headquarters and the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, or Gsoc, has not been publicly tested under O'Sullivan. That relationship – always poor – deteriorated badly under Callinan.

But if recent comments by Judge Mary Ellen Ring, Gsoc’s chairwoman, at the annual conference of the Association of Garda Superintendents reflects the current relationship, then there is still more work to do.

Ring urged senior officers to address discipline, which was their responsibility in the first instance, and not to leave it all to Gsoc. She also bemoaned a reluctance in some sections of the Garda to acknowledge shortcomings in service when minor complaints arose, and to apologise to the complainant, so everyone could move on.

And the independent Garda Síochána Inspectorate has appeared to vent frustration at the pace at which Garda headquarters is moving on its recommendations. It published a report six months ago that outlined how up to 1,000 gardaí could be moved away from desk jobs and that part of the force’s workload taken over by civilians.

The Garda has questioned these figures, and the inspectorate’s chief inspector, Robert Olson, said recently that the delay in replying to the report was perhaps unsurprising, and referred to a “certain process” to the Garda’s decision-making. This “was part of a culture stretching back over several decades”.