Minister for Social Protection Leo Varadkar has described the revelations surrounding the Garda force as "unacceptable" but said on Sunday that Commissioner Nóirin O'Sullivan is key to addressing those issues.
As pressure mounted on the Commissioner over recent controversies and her handling of them Mr Varadkar was asked whether the Garda Commissioner’s position was now untenable.
“I think from the point of view of the Government, the revelations that we’ve seen in the last couple of days really aren’t acceptable,” he told reporters at an event in Dublin. “ They’re appalling and it is important that there is accountability.
“The Government’s view though is that the Commissioner is part of the solution and she has put in place the two solutions to these problems in the past couple of months, so the Government has confidence in the Garda Commissioner, but obviously in light of what’s been said by some Independent Ministers, and also the leader of the opposition, we will discuss this further at Cabinet on Tuesday.”
Asked if she should consider her position, Mr Varadkar added: “No I don’t. As I say, the Government has confidence in the Garda commissioner. She has put in place the two solutions to these very serious issues that have arisen.
“She’s the first commissioner who was appointed through an independent process, but you know I can’t really emphasise any more the extent to which the Government is very annoyed, finds what’s been happening to be appalling and it is really unacceptable.
“There have been just far too many Garda scandals now at this stage and obviously it is something that will have to be discussed further at Cabinet on Tuesday.”
The Minister said it was up to “opposition parties and other parties” to decide whether they wanted to bring the matter to the floor of the Dáil.
“This isn’t something that’s going to be done by the Government. Obviously in light of what’s been said by the leader of the opposition and some of the Independent ministers, the Government will have to discuss this further on Tuesday, but the Government does have confidence in the Garda Commissioner.
“She has put in place the solutions to these issues in the past couple of months and…she’s the first one to have been appointed through an independent and open competition.”
He said he was “absolutely certain” there would be further statements from the Garda Commissioner but he was not going to put a “timeline” on when that would happen. Mr Varadkar said the Policing Authority had been established by the Government to hold the force to account and part of its role would be to find out who was accountable. It would be able to do “much more” than look for a statement and would be able to ask the commissioner and other senior officers questions, he added.
“Part of what they are going to have to do is find out who’s accountable for this. What the Garda [POLICING]Authority has said is very clear, is that this isn’t just some sort of mathematical error or clerical error, that there is ethical issues here. And I do think that the public, and I have to say the Government as well, is very frustrated about the extent to which senior people in public bodies and not just the gardaí are never held to account.
“It almost seems that the only people who get held to account in the senior public service sometimes are politicians, who of course can lose their jobs and lose their seats, but other people don’t.”
Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said Ms O'Sullivan should not resign "The culture of a head on a plate will not serve policing in the country well,'' said Mr Creed.
“I think the commissioner deserves the support of her colleagues in the force as well.’’
He said on the RTÉ television programme The Week in Politics, a scenario could arise where a further series of issues were uncovered under her successor, if she resigned.
“There is a process under way which will improve the gardaí over a period of time,’’ he added.
“And what I am saying is there is nothing to suggest the commissioner is an impediment to that reform processor, or is in any way personally implicated in what was uncovered.’’
He said the commissioner deserved the Government’s support on that basis and he had confidence in her in that regard.
He said it was inevitable other issues within the force would arise.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the commissioner should "consider her position'' if she failed to provide clarity on the issues involved.
“In the context of these revelations, I think the commissioner should consider her position without question,’’ he added.
Mr Martin said he did not want to embroil the Dáil and gardaí in a political controversy.
“The bottom line here is we can no longer articulate confidence in the Garda Commissioner, or indeed, at this particular point in time, in the administration of justice, until we get absolute clarity in plain language as to what happened here,’’ he added.
Mr Martin said if that clarity was not provided, his party would not be in a position to articulate confidence in the commissioner.
Speaking on the RTÉ Radio programme, This Week, he said another issue was whether the Policing Authority had been informed whether the audit was underway.
“If it wasn’t, I cannot understate, in may view, the gravity of that,’’ he added.
He said he had read in The Irish Times on Saturday the authority had not been informed and the agency had learned about it from the media.
“Now that is just untenable and unacceptable,’’ he added.
Mr Martin said he believed Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Justice “should awake from their slumber’’ on the issue.
He said he got the sense that Ms Fitzgerald knew a lot about it early on but did not choose to tell the Dáil about it.
He asked what else was coming down the tracks relating to An Garda Síochána.
“The commissioner, in her statement, does seem to indicate there may be more issues,’’ he added.
Independent Alliance ministers are to consider Ms O’Sullivan’s position at a meeting on Tuesday.
Independent Alliance Minister of State John Halligan said he personally believed the commissioner should ask herself if she had confidence in her role and, maybe, consider stepping aside.
“Putting it mildly, I suppose, I have to say I was bitterly disappointed in her statement,’’ he added. “There appeared to be no explanation offered as to who was responsible and very little accountability of the supervision of the force.’’
Mr Halligan said the issue was one of accountability. “Who was responsible for this mess-up ?,’’ he added.
He said people had to be answerable and it was not good enough any more for error after error to be made.
He said the commissioner had made no effort to say people would be held responsible. “That, to me, is unacceptable,’’ he added.
