The row surrounding Minister for Justice Alan Shatter's disclosure of a minor traffic incident from 2012 has generated hours of debate in the Oireachtas and an apology of sorts.
While any residual threat to Shatter’s position receded following the hour-long debate on the issue on Tuesday night, a number of questions still remain about how a relatively trivial encounter between gardaí and a Dáil TD percolated its way to the very top of the force and formed part of a briefing to the Minister for Justice.
What is known about the incident itself has been conveyed by the TD in question, Mick Wallace, and has not been contradicted. In May 2012, he was stopped at traffic lights at the Five Lamps in Dublin's north inner city when a Garda patrol car pulled up in the lane beside him. Wallace was using his mobile phone and put his hands up to acknowledge it. A garda wound down his window, reminded him that he should not be using it, then drove off.
According to Wallace it all lasted less than a minute. No notes were taken, no caution was issued, nothing was recorded on the Pulse system.
Shatter has disclosed that it was Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan who briefed him about it, during one of several "chats" they had about the wider inquiry into quashed penalty points.
He said he had not sought the information but that it had been presented as an example of gardaí exercising discretion without issuing a fixed notice. He has not elaborated on when the meeting took place, who else was present besides the commissioner, and whether or not anybody else was mentioned.
Confidential discussions
The Garda Síochána has refused to divulge any further details saying communication between the Commissioner and Minister is confidential but that Callinan discharged his function in accordance with the Garda Síochána Act 2005.
Shatter has said he does not know – and is presumably not minded to find out – how the information was passed on to the commissioner.
That Act was referenced in the Dáil debates by Shatter as justification for the commissioner conveying details of the incident to him.
Sections 41 obliges the commissioner to keep the Minister fully informed of significant developments in a wide range of operations, including anything that might adversely affect confidence in the gardaí; any matter affecting the accountability of Government to the Oireachtas and “any other matters that, in the Commissioner’s opinion, should be brought to the Minister’s attention.”
Shatter essentially argued that Callinan was entitled to, and indeed obliged to, brief him on it under the Act, as, among other things, Wallace himself might have brought it up.
As it happened, it took a few days for Wallace to remember it, so minor was it.
While there is a recognition that the immediate political controversy has passed, it does not mean it is resolved.
Unsettling questions remain. How was the information recorded and conveyed upwards within the Garda? Was it recalled because Wallace was an instantly recognisable TD?
Could what Shatter described as an “aside” be of the level of intelligence that a commissioner needs to keep the Minister informed of it under the 2005 Act?
And should rules be put in place to ensure a Minister cannot repeat the same public disclosure in future?
