Shatter’s resignation leaves Government on the back foot

There is no doubt that with his prompt resignation Alan Shatter has done the Government parties no small political favour. Today's publication of the report on the Garda handling of whistleblower complaints by Sean Guerin SC, allegedly scathing in its criticism of, among others, Shatter's Department of Justice and Equality, was almost certain to prompt a furious debate focussed on demands for the Minister's head. There was likely to be, and may yet be, collateral political damage, but his successor Frances Fitzgerald will no doubt be able to deliver a plausible "not on my watch" defence and deflect the discussion and criticism to the Garda, the Garda Ombudsman, officials ...

Shatter is paying a heavy political price for what appears to have been a serious lapse in judgment in his oversight role. He has had an unerring knack also for steering himself head on into controversy, often for defending the politically indefensible, and an abrasiveness that some see as arrogance that has not won him friends or allies inside politics as much as with groups like the gardaí, prison officers or the legal profession. But that reality should not detract, in the balance sheet of the longer view of history, from an important and impressive legacy as a hardworking, activist, reforming Minister for Justice in an area that sorely needs reforming.

Though a solicitor Shatter has been no slave to any of the three branches of the legal establishment. He was the first minister for Justice to broach serious changes in the profession and has set in train major reform of the courts, with a new court of appeal, reform of the judicial appointments system, and has tackled judges’ pay. His Legal Services Regulation Bill, though stalled in the Dáil, represents an important attempt to modernise and streamline – and cheapen the costs associated with – the solicitors’ and barristers’ professions, also introducing new forms of accountability .

Shatter introduced landmark insolvency regulation, new controls to prevent the sexual exploitation of minors, laws on money laundering, trafficking, a DNA database. He has championed the reform of adoption and surrogacy and been a liberal advocate in Cabinet for marriage equality and abortion law reform – stances that had won him more grudging support on Labour benches than perhaps in his own party.

Even , however, if his resignation does spare the Government some of the embarrassment that Guerin will today expose it to, Shatter’s departure will certainly take its toll. This is a Government on the back foot, in defensive mode; its political surefootedness, a memory. A Government which has expended much political capital and credibility in vainly fighting the corner of a minister who has nevertheless had to resign, and of a clearly dysfunctional Garda force. A Government whose judgment is clearly suspect.