Garda authorities and senior politicians turned "a blind eye" to a so-called Heavy Gang established in the 1970s to beat confessions out of suspected terrorists, the presidential candidate, Mr Derek Nally, said yesterday.
During an interview on Today with Pat Kenny, Mr Nally also spoke of a climate of fear that existed at the time and discussed his involvement in the phone tapping affair of the early 1980s. His actions during both periods illustrated his credentials for the Presidency, he said.
Mr Nally had been the general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) during a period when the State was being "battered very, very severely" by subversive organisations.
"We were getting quite a time of it down here with a lot of bank robberies and some guards being shot . . . there was every attempt being made by the gardai with the inadequate laws they had to deal with that," he said.
There was a small handful of gardai who condoned behaviour that went against what Mr Nally considered "the proper enforcement of the role of law in this country".
They were beating people up to get confessions out of them, suggested Kenny. Mr Nally agreed: "That is in fact what happened in some instances," he said.
He found out about the situation from members of his association. When it was discussed among senior AGSI representatives it was decided that there was no point in going to "the top person within the force", a reference to the late former Garda Commissioner, Mr Ned Garvey. "That person was aware of it as well," said Mr Nally. Mr Garvey had "definitively condoned" the beatings and "turned a blind eye" to goings on, he said.
There was a "great fear" of politicians at that time. "They controlled you, they controlled your future," he said. The AGSI representatives went to the then Minister for Justice, Mr Paddy Cooney. "I don't know whether he was surprised or not," said Mr Nally adding that he was "very disappointed" with the response.
The matter was placed in the public domain by Mr Nally who subsequently spoke to this newspaper about the affair.
"It did emerge through the media . . . it would have been The Irish Times group who unearthed it and brought it to light. They asked me questions at the time and I told them what I had done . . . We were doing it to preserve the Garda Siochana, to preserve the rule of law and to give integrity to the Constitution under which we were working. It could have destroyed the force," he said.
Turning to the tapping of journalists phones, Mr Nally described how he had learned of the affair. "A person rang me from within the force, asked me to meet him. The man was shaking the day I met him at a very secluded location . . . he and a number of colleagues were sick to their stomach at listening and transcribing tapes that had nothing whatever to do with the subversion of the State or serious criminal acts," he said.
"They knew they couldn't go anywhere, that the order had come from the Commissioner . . . it subsequently transpired that he had signed the order for the tapping of the phones. They knew the request had come from the Minister for Justice at the time, Sean Doherty, and they suspected that he had been ordered to do so by the Taoiseach of the day, Charlie Haughey," he said.
There was no-one in the Garda that Mr Nally felt he could talk to at any level so he decided to go straight to Geraldine Kennedy, one of the journalists whose phone was being tapped, now Political Correspondent of The Irish Times.
Mr Nally also sought assistance from the former Taoiseach, then leader of the opposition, Mr Garret Fitzgerald, about a separate matter involving political interference in the Garda Siochana.
It concerned the Minister for Justice, Sean Doherty's attempt to influence Sgt Tom Tully's decision to pursue a late night drinking offence near Boyle, in Co Roscommon. When the sergeant refused to be swayed, the Minister instructed the then Garda Commissioner to transfer him.
"We fought it all the way and we won," said Nally. The victory was achieved despite the fact that an appeals board consisted of two "establishment figures" and one AGSI representative. "However, in this case the two people concerned recognised the injustice at what was attempted to be done and there was a unanimous decision not to transfer him," he said.
There had been threats to his life "cards and bullets in the post", presumably from the IRA, after AGSI passed a motion at their conference in 1982 requesting the removal of a clause in the extradition agreement which prevented people being extradited to Northern Ireland. On that occasion, they were called in, "sat around a table and asked, what in the name of God are you up??
??" by Charlie Haughey's government, said Mr Nally.
Would the experience he gained while facing the challenges in his career be called for in the largely ceremonial role of President?
"It is much more than that," said Mr Nally. "The President must exude values, and these values are values of decency, values of upholding the rule of law, values of integrity. The people of this country must feel safe with who controls the Constitution and that's why I feel that I can do that," he said.
Mr Nally expected that his votes would come from "all over the place". "I think a lot of people are now seeing the President as being the head of civic society in this country and the Taoiseach being the head of political society, and they see a distinct difference between the two," he added.