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Alan Kelly: Have the Garda and Justice disclosed everything to Charleton?

Boxes of new evidence have been given to the tribunal, but only after persistent questions in the Oireachtas

Mr. Justice Peter Charleton, at the Tribunal of Inquiry into protected disclosures made under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and certain other matters, at Dublin Castle.Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times

Alan Kelly
Thu Jan 11 2018 - 13:06

Hearing from the Charleton tribunal on Monday this week that dozens of boxes of new evidence had been made available by the Department of Justice and the Garda made me once again re-read Judge Charleton’s opening statement to the tribunal.

During his opening statement on February 27th last year he said that “the tribunal is here to establish the truth”. He continued: “Every lie told before this tribunal will be a waste of what ordinary men and women have paid for through their unremitting efforts. Every action of obfuscation, of diversion of focus, and of non-co-operation is unwelcome for that reason.”

He concluded by asking for help. “The tribunal needs your help and needs it urgently . . . now the opportunity has arisen to co-operate in this inquiry. The tribunal wants to know the detail of that; who did what, who said what, when, in what terms, who communicated with whom, by whatever means, and in what terms. What evidence have you of this beyond what you are saying? The details are central. The tribunal needs the detail. Today, the tribunal is calling for all those people with knowledge of the matters in the terms of reference (a) to (o) inclusive to provide a written statement and to forward this to Elizabeth Mullan, solicitor to the tribunal at Dublin Castle.” He asked that all submissions be in by March 13th.

Given what we now know in January 2018, it can hardly be claimed that Judge Charleton has fully received that help from the Department of Justice and the Garda in a timely fashion. Instead, there has been a constant drip-drip of information in the public domain which has resulted in more documentation, data, information, correspondence and statements being produced.

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The political crisis that arose last November manifested itself because of the very specific parliamentary questions asked of the Department of Justice in October and November last year regarding the O’Higgins Commission. I submitted a large volume of questions without getting any appropriate answers. In the end I was asking specific questions just to get them on the record rather than expecting them to be answered. That is not the way parliamentary democracy should work.

Game-changer

November 8th was the game-changer, when I asked specific questions regarding telephone calls and communications from the Garda to the Department of Justice on May 15th, 2015. We now know there were a number of calls. Coincidentally, on November 9th, a day later and the same day Katie Hannon interviewed me on Prime Time, the Department of Justice found the email about the legal strategy that was circulated across senior officials in the department and to Minister Fitzgerald. The subsequent "trawl" ordered by the Taoiseach brought out more information which led to the tánaiste's resignation and saved the Government.

Key questions arise now, though. What would have happened if questions were not persistently asked late last year, followed up and supported by political colleagues and publicised by the media?

Would these huge volumes of documentation and statements which are obviously potentially relevant to the tribunal have ever been discovered, and how can the Garda and the Department of Justice explain why they are only appearing now?

Would we have the new list of witnesses to the tribunal – Frances Fitzgerald, former secretary general Noel Waters, former assistant secretary Ken O’Leary and various other interested parties – so we can get a full account of what transpired?

Would we have the letter from the acting commissioner to the Minister for Justice regarding the concerns there are about how the Garda’s Charleton liaison unit is operating as the Garda data room for the tribunal? It is interesting to note the increased volumes of documentation now coming from the Garda subsequent to this action by the commissioner.

Relevant information

Did the Department of Justice and An Garda Síochána provide all the necessary documentation and relevant information to the O’Neill inquiry, which preceded and set out the scope for Charleton, and if not, why not?

These are serious questions for the Department of Justice. There must be a parallel political process that gets answers to these questions quickly, otherwise political accountability is out the window.

The Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice have promised widespread change in what the Taoiseach describes as the “dysfunctional” Department of Justice.

We must have confidence that there has now been full disclosure to and full co-operation with the tribunal. Everyone knows that the administration of An Garda Síochána and the operation of the Department of Justice are both in need of complete overhaul.

In the interim, while this happens, for the operation of Justice to retain public confidence, the Minister for Justice and this Government need to ensure that the Disclosures Tribunal is getting full disclosure. The sight of dozens of new boxes of material arriving almost a year after the Tribunal commenced doesn’t breed confidence.

Alan Kelly is Labour Party TD for Tipperary

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