Garda complaint letter misdirected

AN INDEPENDENT candidate in last year’s European elections has raised concerns about receiving confidential Garda Síochána correspondence…

AN INDEPENDENT candidate in last year’s European elections has raised concerns about receiving confidential Garda Síochána correspondence which was addressed mistakenly to another party.

Fiachra Ó Luain, who ran unsuccessfully in the North West constituency, received the letter from the Garda Síochána Mayo division in response to a complaint made to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission.

Mr Ó Luain had contacted the Garda ombudsman about Garda handling of his concerns over misallocation of ballots during the counting of European election votes in Castlebar last June.

Some 3,000 of Mr Ó Luain’s first preferences had been credited in error to Libertas candidate Declan Ganley; this was discovered when Mr Ganley requested a recheck.

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However, a letter in relation to garda investigations posted to Mr Ó Luain at his home in Co Donegal and dated January 22nd was addressed to Dublin-based former Garda and human rights observer Benny McCabe, who had lodged an entirely different complaint about his treatment by gardaí at a Corrib gas-related protest in Glengad, Co Mayo, last year.

Both complaints to the Garda ombudsman were referred to the Garda Commissioner. In both cases, superintendents in Mayo were assigned to investigate by the head of the Mayo Garda division, and both found no evidence of breach of discipline by gardaí.

Mr Ó Luain said that the erroneous dispatch of letters was “not only an insult to Mr McCabe, myself and the thousands of people who had their votes misallocated, but it is also an affront to the integrity of the Garda ombudsman, whose raison d’etre is to identify and amend investigative shortcomings, not compound them”.

Mr McCabe, who has received another letter correctly addressed to him, said that a “cut and paste” approach to correspondence was indicative of an attitude. “I feel that there is a very real question to be addressed as to why the Garda ombudsman hands these complaints over to the Garda for investigation,” Mr McCabe said.

A Garda ombudsman spokesman said that Mr Ó Luain had sought and had been granted a review of his case.