OPINION:IS THERE any point now in parsing the minutiae of what happened in 1982, when the Garda's C3 security section misused its legal capacity to tap telephones at the instigation of Charles Haughey? The answer is yes, because it could happen again, writes CONOR BRADY
Former deputy commissioner TJ Ainsworth has taken issue (Opinion Analysis, October 10th) with the version of events put forward by former department of justice official Jim Kirby – reported on by Joe Joyce and Geraldine Kennedy (Weekend, October 6th).
The former deputy commissioner is now advanced in years. He served the State over a long career and he is entitled, of course, to seek to defend his record. But whatever about the details, it is important that we do not lose sight of the central facts of what happened.
Powers entrusted to the Garda Síochána were subverted and misused for tactical political purposes at the instigation of the taoiseach and the minister for justice.
Each of the journalists tapped was writing regularly about the divisions within Fianna Fáil over Haughey’s leadership. And many of Haughey’s critics, themselves elected representatives, were in regular contact with them. Gardaí rode roughshod over their constitutional right to privacy. The journalists’ capacity to discharge legitimate, confidential functions of news gathering – also guaranteed by the Constitution – was undermined.
Former deputy commissioner Ainsworth has long protested his innocence of any wrongdoing. As he recalled in his article this week, he set out an extensive justification of his actions when interviewed by the present writer in 1984. But it would be kind to describe at least some of what he now writes as tendentious.
For example, he implies that the so-called “Dowra affair” may have been the product of a British intelligence operation. This goes beyond the most vivid flights of the imagination.
A man due in court to give evidence in an assault case was improperly locked up by the RUC at the request of the Garda Síochána. The accused, himself a garda, was a brother-in-law of the minister for justice, Seán Doherty. This had about as much to do with British intelligence as with the Legion of Mary.
Some differences of recollection are only to be expected when two men, one a former senior civil servant, the other a former senior garda, seek to recall events of 30 years ago.
But there must be no doubt as to what this was about. The independence and integrity of the Garda Síochána were shockingly compromised. Senior officers were directed to take actions that had nothing to do with State security or crime and everything to do with Charles Haughey’s determination to outflank his critics and to hold on to political power.
There are disquieting aspects to Ainsworth’s defence. There is little sense in what he writes of any comprehension of the betrayal of public trust in the Garda Síochána that occurred. Even still, it appears, the former deputy commissioner does not seem willing to acknowledge the gravity of using police power and resources in the discharge of a purely political agenda.
The “Cabinet leaks” that led to the phone taps had no bearing upon national security or organised crime. There were no leaks about the struggle to contain paramilitary violence, about vital national interests, about threats to the State or matters fundamental to the economy.
Senior political figures around Charles Haughey were increasingly concerned about his unsuitability for office. Time and events vindicated the judgment of those who wished him gone. But Haughey wanted intelligence on his enemies – to know who was in contact with the political correspondents, what they were saying and what they intended to do.
Ainsworth’s inability to distinguish between the legitimate interests of the State and the political agenda of a particular party or individual would not have been entirely unique among certain elements of the security establishment.
But any argument that a tussle for political power could justify what happened in this case is fatuous. If a taoiseach does not have confidence in his ministers, the constitutionally correct course of action is to replace them. It is not the duty of the police in a healthy democracy to assist the head of government in gathering intelligence on his political rivals.
The “Cabinet leaks” that the former deputy commissioner says he “had to trace” were concerned from start to finish with keeping Haughey in office. It is regrettable, and a great stain on the force’s record, that the leadership of the Garda Síochána at the time could not apprehend this reality or take a stand on it.
What occurred was a corruption of the powers with which gardaí are provided to combat crime and subversion. And it was a failure on the part of senior gardaí at the time to assert their own independence and their duty to the Constitution. There simply was not the courage at key levels in the depot to tell Haughey and Doherty that the national police force could not be deployed as their personal spy agency.
Could it happen again? Probably yes. The Garda Síochána remains the only police force in these islands that does not have an independent board or authority between it and its minister. There is still no cordon sanitaire to prevent a venal minister, perhaps at the promptings of a corrupt taoiseach, from bringing improper pressure to bear on the leadership of the Garda Síochána.
In 1982 there was a catastrophic alignment between an unscrupulous taoiseach, a justice minister who left his principles at the door and a senior police establishment that was at best weak and at worst complicit. It was an honourable civil servant, with at least the tacit support of some senior gardaí who were themselves appalled by what happened, who brought the matter finally into the open.
We have been fortunate in recent years in that we have had honest ministers and that we have had Garda commissioners with a strong sense of independence and propriety. The Garda Síochána Act 2005 contains a number of provisions that support the operational autonomy of the Garda Síochána. But it does nothing to protect the leadership of the Garda Síochána from exploitation of the kind that occurred in 1982.
In a system where government insists on having the police directly under political control, senior officers are uniquely vulnerable to pressure from people who hold their career future in their hands.
If an officer is to rise to the commissioner ranks of the Garda Síochána, the people who will make that happen are the minister for justice and the taoiseach.
Talk of the independence of the Garda Síochána from the politicians in this context is a nonsense.
The events of 1981-1982 showed what can happen when all the bits go wrong in an inherently flawed system. The Donegal corruptions of the 1990s were covered over for years by the spurious invocation of “State security”.
If the cycle of police scandal does not come around again it will be due to luck rather than because the State has put in the appropriate statutory safeguards.
Conor Brady was editor of The Irish Times from 1986 to 2002. He served as a Garda Ombudsman commissioner from 2005 to 2011.