Tag Archives: Terry Prone

From top (Clockwise) Terry Prone, former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, former Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan; a reply from the Department of Justice to journalist Ken Foxe

Under the Freedom of Information Act, journalist Ken Foxe has been attempting to obtain emails between the former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic, while Ms Fitzgerald was minister between May 8, 2014 and March 11, 2017.

From 2014 to 2017, Ms Prone wasn’t only advising Ms Fitzgerald. She was also advising the then Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.

As Ms Fitzgerald was the Justice Minister at the time, Ms O’Sullivan was, on paper, answerable to Ms Fitzgerald.

Mr Foxe was originally told there were no records of correspondence between Ms Prone and Ms Fitzgerald but, after appealing that decision, he was informed by the Office of the Information Commissioner last month that there were 68 such records.

Further to the OIC’s decision, Mr Foxe has since been sent an update from the Department of Justice (above).

Yesterday evening, Mr Foxe tweeted:

Those notorious ‘non-existent’ emails between former justice minister Frances Fitzgerald and PR guru Terry Prone will be released (or perhaps not depending on the decision) next Monday.

Previously: Frances, Nóirín and Tess

…starring Terry Prone.

Sigh.

Economist David McWilliams’ new documentary on Ireland’s economy.

On TV3 Virgin Media One at 10pm.

Previously: Terry Prone on Broadsheet

From top: Terry Prone, Frances Fitzgerald and Norin O’Sullivan

Last Friday journalist Ken Foxe revealed that the Office of the Information Commissioner had discovered 68 records of correspondence between former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and PR advisor Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic between May 8, 2014 and March 11, 2017.

These were records which the Department of Justice previously said never existed.

The OIC made the discovery after Mr Foxe appealed the department’s claim that there were no such records in existence.

As a consequence of the OIC’s examination, the OIC Peter Tyndall quashed the department’s decision to refuse to release the correspondence and requested that the department ask Ms Fitzgerald to check her personal email accounts for any other records.

The Department of Justice has since told Mr Foxe it is considering Mr Tyndall’s decision.

From 2014 to 2017, Ms Prone wasn’t only advising Ms Fitzgerald. She was also advising the then Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.

As Ms Fitzgerald was the Justice Minister at the time, Ms O’Sullivan was, on paper, answerable to Ms Fitzgerald.

The Disclosures Tribunal saw how statements or draft speeches were written with the help of Ms Prone by Ms O’Sullivan for Ms Fitzgerald concerning issues about Ms O’Sullivan.

Mr Justice Peter Charleton described this sequence of events worthy of Myles na Gopaleen’s satire.

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Journalist Ken Foxe, former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and PR advisor Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic

The Information Commissioner Peter Tyndall yesterday quashed a previous decision by the Department of Justice to refuse to release correspondence sent between the former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and her officials and Terry Prone and her PR company the Communications Clinic.

The department made this decision on the basis that there was no such correspondence.

However, Mr Tyndall’s office, in reviewing the department’s decision, found there is such correspondence.

He concluded the department did not take “all reasonable steps to ascertain the whereabouts of further records”; and he has requested that the department ask Ms Fitzgerald to check her personal email accounts for any other records.

On March 11, 2017, journalist, Dublin Institute of Technology lecturer and director at Right To Know Ken Foxe made a request for “copies of all correspondence, both written and electronic” between Fine Gael TD Frances Fitzgerald and/or her private office and Terry Prone and her PR company the Communications Clinic – from the time Ms Fitzgerald was made Minister for Justice to the date of his request.

This meant Mr Foxe’s request covered correspondence between May 8, 2014 and March 11, 2017.

[Ms Fitzgerald stepped down as Minister for Justice on June 14, 2017]

The department wrote back to Mr Foxe two days after receiving his request, saying it was seeking four more weeks (on top of the initial four weeks provided for) to make a decision on the matter, without any explanation for why they needed the extra time.

On May 15, 2017, Mr Foxe sought an internal review as, by then, Mr Foxe deemed his request was refused.

On June 8, 2017, the department decided to refuse the request because, it said, there were no such records.

But it’s on public record Ms Fitzgerald paid the Communications Clinic, via a special secretarial allowance, more than €11,000 between the date she became minister and the end of 2016.

Those present at Disclosures Tribunal earlier this year also saw written/email communications between Ms Prone and Ms Fitzgerald during the relevant time of Mr Foxe’s request.

In the same month, June 2017, Mr Foxe appealed the department’s decision to the Information Commissioner Peter Tyndall – believing that there had not been a thorough search of Ms Fitzgerald’s professional and personal emails and messages.

In turn, an investigator with the Information Commissioner’s office asked the Department of Justice about the steps it took to search for records relevant to Mr Foxe’s request.

The department then discovered 74 records which had not been considered relevant previously.

In his decision regarding Mr Foxe’s appeal, Mr Tyndall wrote:

“It seems that in late January 2018, following concerns expressed by my investigative staff that further records could be held, the Department searched archived email accounts.

My Office identified 68 records that fall within the scope of the applicant’s request and advised the Department of this. The remaining six records were created after the FOI request was made and are not therefore within the scope of the review.”

Mr Tyndall also wrote that some of the records finally located by the department were related to speeches given by Ms Fitzgerald.

He also wrote:

“in response to the query about whether it [the department] had considered
records held in personal email accounts, the department stated that it ‘has no access to or control over such accounts, particularly in respect of persons no longer working in the Department’.”

Mr Tyndall, in his decision, explained that the Department of Justice said it wouldn’t be appropriate for it to ask Ms Fitzgerald whether she has records of correspondence with Ms Prone or the Communications Clinic in her personal email accounts “that might fall within the scope of the request”, and that the department “does not feel it is in a position to go outside of the scope of the FOI Act and seek such information from [Ms Fitzgerald] in an attempt to respond to an FOI request”.

However, Mr Tyndall said he couldn’t accept this position.

Specifically, Mr Tyndall said:

It appears from the records retrieved by the Department and dealt with above that the former Minister and some of her staff used gmail addresses in correspondence with the company [the Communications Clinic] about official functions and activities of the Department.

“To the extent that a gmail or other account may have been used in this way, I do not accept that such content could reasonably be characterised as “private”. I do not believe that it is particularly relevant that the former Minister is no longer working in the Department.”

Yesterday Mr Tyndall made the following decision:

“I hereby annul the department’s decision to effectively refuse access to records identified during the course of this review and I direct it to undertake a fresh decision making process on those records.

“I direct the department to ask the former minister whether she holds additional records within the scope of the applicant’s FOI request and if she does, to retrieve them and furnish them to the department so that it can make a decision on them in accordance with the provisions of the FOI Act.

“The fresh decision making process should be carried out and decisions on both elements above notified to the applicant in accordance with section 8 of the FOI Act.

“For clarity, I specify that subject to sections 24 and 26 of the Act, the statutory time limit for making a decision begins within five working days of the expiration of the four week period for the bringing of a High Court appeal.”

There you go now.

Previously: ‘Records Do In Fact Exist’

Norin’s Prone Position

Thanks Ken

UPDATE:

Terry Prone (left), of the Communications Clinic, who acted as an advisor at the same time to both former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and former Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan during the Maurice McCabe controversy

Meanwhile…

An email – as seen at the recent Disclosures Tribunal – containing press clippings sent from Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic to both the then Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and former Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan in 2014.

Good times.

Ken Foxe

 

From left : Noirin O’Sullivan, Terry Prone and Frances Fitzgerald

Yesterday.

At the Disclosures Tribunal.

There was an  exchange between Patrick Marrinan SC, for the tribunal, and former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Justice and Equality Ken O’Leary, who retired last June.

It came after Mr Marrinan asked Mr O’Leary about the Department of Justice’s relationship with the Garda Commissioner.

It was in the context of the swirling of drafts – with the help of Terry Prone of the Communications Clinic – being sent back and forth between the then Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and the then Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, via Mr O’Leary, in May 2016 after reports emerged in the Irish Examiner and RTE about the O’Higgins Commission.

The drafts were in relation to pending public statements by Ms O’Sullivan and contributions to the Dáil by Ms Fitzgerald.

When Ms O’Sullivan gave evidence, it was put to her that it appeared she was drafting a statement for the minister – to be made in the Dáil – when she wrote an email, with a draft attached, and the message:

“I understand that you may have to make a statement this morning and I enclose a draft for your consideration.”

But Ms O’Sullivan said:

“I may have said a draft, I don’t mean a draft statement, it’s a draft insofar as here are pointers that you can choose to use or not.

But actually, and we probably will come to the email but they were the facts, the actual facts as opposed to the erroneous facts that were floating around the commentary at that time.

The draft, or pointers, included the lines:

“I have interrogated this matter in detail with the Commissioner…I wish to state here and now that I have full confidence in the Commissioner.”

Ms Fitzgerald didn’t end up saying this in the Dail.

Returning to the exchange between Mr Marrinan and Mr O’Leary:

Patrick Marrinan: “I mean, a commentator might say that you know, that the Department was acting hand in glove with the Commissioner at the time?”

Ken O’Leary: “And so it was, for the very good reason that we had to take a public interest view in relation to all these matters and our view was that the public interest was not going to be served in any way by the Commissioner’s position being put in jeopardy at that time.”

Marrinan: “Yes. But you will appreciate that we are probably hearing about this relationship as it existed at the time between the Department and the Garda Commissioner for the first time, because it’s not evident and apparent to members of the public to know that there is this closeness and degree of closeness between the Garda Commissioner and Department — officials in the Department of Justice and indeed the Minister, do you understand?”

O’Leary: “Well, I mean, there is two points I’d make: Like, our contribution, I mean, if any of the material that week looked as if we were very supportive of the Garda Commissioner, that’s because we were very supportive.”

Marrinan: “Yes.”

O’Leary: “And it wasn’t because of loyalty or whatever. It was because we took the view that there was no proper basis for questioning the Commissioner’s position. But there was a danger because of the political feverish climate going on at the time, if people had looked at previous things that had happened during the course of Garda controversies they could go anywhere.

And frankly, we also thought there was a danger that the Commissioner, given the way she was being pilloried in public and the very difficult position that was in, there was obviously a danger that a sensible person might say, look, I am not putting up with this any more.

And the implications for us of having to find a new Commissioner and the disruption that would have been caused, as I say our view of the public interest was that anything we could do to support the Commissioner, we would do, because we thought that was in the interests of the leadership of the Guards, and the public interest.

So as I say, it wasn’t all friends helping each other out; it was a clear view of where we thought the public interest lay. If –I mean, if the O’Higgins Commission report said the Commissioner inappropriately relied on strategies to do down Sergeant McCabe, well then we would have had to deal with that in an entirely different way.”

Marrinan: “Yes. So I mean, would it be fair to summarise your position in relation to this, that you may well have been hand in glove with the Commissioner in relation to this issue at the time, not because you had a cosy relationship but because the Department had taken a view arising out of the O’Higgins Commission that the Commissioner was in fact correct in her approach and there was no question that she was going to resign?”

O’Leary: “It’s not that we were taking a view the Commissioner was correct in what happened at the O’Higgins Commission, because we had absolutely no information except for one detail, we may be coming to.

What we were doing was relying on Judge O’Higgins’s report and there was nothing in that that questioned in any way the approach of the Garda Commissioner on our reading of it. The hand in glove phrase, do you know, if you don’t mind me saying so, it is a bit pejorative. Like, we were working closely with the Garda Commissioner in the situation which arose to achieve the objectives we thought were best in the public interest.”

Marrinan: “Yes. But so closely that you thought it appropriate and not out of order to send a draft letter to the Commissioner for her consideration to send back to the Department and also that the Garda Commissioner could contact the Minister directly with what, on the face of it, appears to be a draft speech expressing confidence in her?”

O’Leary: “In relation to, you know, what is called a draft letter, I have tried to explain the background to that, if it had been written, headed instead ‘points that you might take into account in the light of our discussions’, I don’t think anyone would find that objectionable and maybe that is what I should have done.”

Marrinan: “I know. But that is not the way it’s written, it’s written in the first person, as indeed the speech is written in the first person.”

O’Leary: “Well, I mean, frankly, like, that is a question of form rather than substance in relation to what was going on.”

Marrinan: “Well, I think if it had become — either the letter or the speech had become bestsellers, there might have been a quarrel in relation to copyright and royalties, but anyway.”

The tribunal continues today.

Previously: Disclosures Tribunal on Broadsheet

Clockwise from top left: Former Secretary General of the Department of Justice Noel Waters; Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic, former Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and former Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald

Last Friday.

At the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Castle.

Evidence was heard from the former Secretary General at the Department of Justice Noel Waters and Head of Legal Affairs at An Garda Siochana Ken Ruane.

Mr Ruane is scheduled to continue giving evidence today and will be followed by Annemarie Ryan, of the Chief State Solicitor’s office.

On Friday, it also heard of Michael McDowell SC, for Sgt McCabe, say although nobody was suggesting that somebody was going to ask Sgt McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation if he ever abused a child,  “there was consideration, God knows by whom, given to the question of putting Ms D’s allegation firmly in the middle of the table at the O’Higgins Commission”.

It also heard of communications between the former Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and the former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald and the bizarre drawing up of statements by the Department of Justice for the Garda Commissioner to make to the Department of Justice.

That particular matter prompted  Judge Charleton to recall Myles na gCopaleen and ask: “If the Garda Commissioner is writing to the Department of Justice what the Department of Justice wants to have written to it, what in heaven’s name does that mean in terms of any genuine progress in terms of attitude?”

It also heard of a draft speech Ms O’Sullivan sent to Ms Fitzgerald on May 18, 2016 –  after the Irish Examiner broke the story in May 2016 about the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation and the strategy employed against Sgt McCabe – and in which she suggested Ms Fitzgerald tell the Dail, among other things, “I have interrogated this matter in detail with the 22 Commissioner of An Garda Síochána and now present to the House the outcome…I wish to state here now that I have full confidence in the Commissioner” (more about these communications in a later post).

Continue reading →

From top (left): Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic; former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald; former Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan; a response journalist Ken Foxe received from An Garda Siochana on foot of an FOI request

You may recall a previous post about the Communications Clinic and how it was hired by both An Garda Siochana and the Department of Justice in both 2015 and 2016.

An Garda Siochana paid the the firm €10,400  and €92,955 in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

The Department of Justice paid the Communications Clinic  €756 and €24,221 in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

The post drew attention to the fact two separate attempts made earlier this year, by journalists Ali Bracken, of the Irish Daily Mail, and Ken Foxe – to obtain details of An Garda Siochana’s hiring of the Communications Clinic, under the Freedom of Information Act – were rejected.

Specifically, Mr Foxe sought “copies of any emails between the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and PR consultant Terry Prone or the Communications Clinic during the period in which those services were provided to AGS.”

An Garda Siocana refused Mr Foxe’s request on the basis that there were no emails that were subject to FOI (see docs above).

Further to this…

Last March, Mr Foxe also sent a similar FOI request to the Department of Justice for “copies of all correspondence – both written and electronic – between the Minister Frances Fitzgerald and/or her private office and any of the following people or companies: Terry Prone and/or the Communications Clinic. “

Mr Foxe’s request was eventually refused on the basis that there were no records.

He then appealed this decision.

Yesterday.

Mr Foxe tweeted what he wrote in his appeal and the response he got from the Department of Justice…


Via Ken Foxe

Previously: Noirin’s Prone Position

From top: Catherine Corless with Ray D’Arcy yesterday;; Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic, on the Late Late Show in October

Yesterday.

Historian Catherine Corless was interviewed on RTE Radio One’s Ray D’Arcy Show.

During the interview, Ms Corless – who discovered there are no burial records for 796 babies and toddlers who were recorded as having died at the home – said she rejected an apology made by the chair of the Communications Clinic Terry Prone on the Late Late Show in October.

Ms Prone made the apology because of an email she wrote to French journalist Saskia Weber after the Irish Daily Mail first published a story about the possibility of a mass grave at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co Galway in 2014.

In her email, Ms Prone – who was taking media queries on behalf of the Bon Secours nuns – told Ms Weber:

 “If you come here, you’ll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying “Yeah, a few bones were found – but this was an area where Famine victims were buried. So?”

Ms Prone also told Ms Weber:

“If you’d like me to point you at a few reputable historians who might be good, I’ll certainly do that.”

Ms Corless’s interview on the Ray D’Arcy Show followed Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, on December 12, publishing a report from the Expert Technical Group which has been investigating the former Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

In that report, the group outlined five options for the site of the former Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Readers should note the group’s full 232-page report also contains the line:

The potential to identify individuals interred in Tuam is one that poses many challenges as has been identified in this report. It is an issue that has the potential to cause upset and potential damage to relations between the public, the Church and the Government.”

Ms Corless spoke about this line during her interview with Mr D’Arcy.

She also called for the number of skulls to be counted at the Tuam site to see if there are 796 skulls.

She said if there are fewer than 796, this may indicate that death certs were falsified to allow for illegal adoptions to take place – with children most likely sent to America.

From the interview…

Ray D’Arcy: “When you were in the last time with us, I think it was February 2015, I read to you the letter that Terry Prone had written on behalf of the Bon Secours  nuns to a French documentary…”

Catherine Corless: “That’s right, that’s right.”

D’Arcy: “And it sort of poo-pooed the whole thing.

Corless: “Terry Prone did, she just really, she just made a mock of all the survivors and everything that I had brought out into the open. And it was very, very unprofessional of her at the time, I thought. And I just couldn’t believe it. It was very hurtful, it’s all I can say, to survivors.”

D’Arcy: “She did say, on the Late Late Show, when Ryan Tubridy put…”

Corless: “Well because she was put to the…a gun was put to her head, yeah.”

D’Arcy: “She said, ‘most shockingly, I should have contacted Catherine and said I’m really sorry. I believed, based on the evidence I had, that it was famine burials. And then, without looking to camera, but I think she was addressing you, ‘you were right and you were right to fight it through’. Has she rang you since?”

Corless: “Absolutely not, Ray. No I don’t take that as an apology at all because it was just a very curt, kind of her hands in the air again. It was almost the same, ‘so, I was wrong’. That’s the way I took it.”

D’Arcy: “Was that before or after you were on the Late Late?”

Corless: “It was after, oh it was yeah.”

D’Arcy: “Would you like her to ring you?”

Corless: “Absolutely, absolutely, just to see how she really feels about it: are they taking this seriously at all? Does she realise the impact it has on survivors, so many survivors. I think that’s the one thing Ray. Nobody’s taken, still, to this day, taken much notice of them, or listened to them. They don’t know the hurt they’re going through. And it’s impacting on their own families. And they don’t realise there’s so many of them.”

Later

D’Arcy: “So that report from the Expert Technical Group. In it they say, because there was a lot more to it than just the five proposals as to how to treat the site. In it they say it’s ‘an issue that has the potential to cause upset and potential damage to relations between the public, the Church and the Government’.”

Corless: “That’s right, Ray. I would question, I would question the people who wrote that, what is that about? Are they telling us we can’t be going? We can’t be upsetting the Church again? Or the State? Or the Government? I would like a, I would like an explanation of that.”

D’Arcy: “I’ll have to read it again for them again, Catherine.”

Corless: “Do please.”

D’Arcy: “‘It’s an an issue that has the potential to cause upset and potential damage to relations between the public, the Church and the Government’. Now they’re not saying ‘don’t do it because..’, they’re just pointing out…”

Corless: “I know…that’s what I mean. When you read the five suggestions again. The words they’re using. ‘Disruptive’ and they’re using words that they shouldn’t use. They’re more or less, I have said, it’s bordering on propaganda, the way that, those five issues are pointed out.”

D’Arcy: “Because they’re sort of leading…”

Corless: “Leading, leading the witness, you could say. Absolutely. And of course the money is there upfront and the first column of all the suggestions and maybe €3m-€5m sounds terrible to people and I know what Galway County Council will be saying, ‘it’s taxpayers’ money, this, that and the other’, ‘we don’t need this’, ‘there’s hospitals…’, they’ll bring in all this…”

Listen back here in full

Read the Expert Technical Group’s full report here

Previously: Reputable History

Terry Prone of the Communications Clinic and former Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan at the Public Accounts Committee on July 13, 2017

An Garda Siochana paid the Communications Clinic €10,400  and €92,955 in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Further to this…

On Thursday, July 13, 2017.

The former Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan was asked about this sum of €92,955 by Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry, in a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee.

Ms O’Sullivan told the committee the money would have been used to train gardai to deal with local radio and media.

She said:

“As part of our modernisation and renewal programme, we have committed to opening up the organisation. I do not have the exact breakdown here, but maybe some of my colleagues do.

The moneys would again have been spent on training Garda and civilian members around the country for interaction with local radio and local media, for example, on some of the information messages that would have gone out around Operation Thor and the “lock up and light up” campaign.

“Again, we can provide an exact breakdown or maybe some of my colleagues would have it, but that is what it would have been.”

When Mr MacSharry specifically asked Ms O’Sullivan if she had attended any media training sessions with the PR firm, Ms O’Sullivan said:

No. Maybe it is an opportunity, if I may Chair, to do something. I have seen a lot of speculation and commentary. Particularly, I think there was a figure of €140,000 mentioned which apparently I spent in terms of preparing for Committee of Public Accounts meetings. That is completely untrue. I have never received any preparatory training. Like yourself, Chair, I am not sure where that reporting came from. Certainly, no, I did not.

Mr MacSharry attempted to clarify further when they had this exchange:

Marc MacSharry:So the €92,000 was for people who would have to be spokespeople for local radio after a crime or were being consulted on an issue or something.”

Ms Nóirín O’Sullivan: “And, for example, district offices. As the Deputy will have seen, one of the criticisms we have received is that we are insular and defensive. Some of the inspectorate reports quite rightly raised the fact we need to speak more openly to the media. The Deputy would have seen a lot of our local officers around the country engaging more with the media. We have found that part of public reassurance is to get on local radio stations in particular and give out messages of reassurance and crime prevention and stories of interest to local communities.”

However…

Yesterday, John Mooney, in The Sunday Times, reported that the Disclosures Tribunal is examining advice which Terry Prone, of the Communications Clinic, gave to the former Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan in May, 2016.

Ms Prone gave this advice after it emerged that claims made by Ms O’Sullivan’s senior counsel during the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation in 2015 – that Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe was acting out of malice – were proven to be untrue and journalists were asking Ms O’Sullivan for a comment about the same.

Mr Mooney reported:

The tribunal has been notified of email exchanges between senior gardai and Prone from May 2016, when the PR executive was consulted on the wording of a statement issued by the garda press office in response to media queries about O’Sullivan’s approach to McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission hearings.

“…Charleton has been given statements and documents that show Garda Headquarters held a meeting to discuss how it would respond to the issues identified by O’Higgins. The Garda press office later released three statements on the report and the leaked transcripts.

“Prone advised O’Sullivan on the second statement, which was released by the garda press office. It was an attempt to clarify the then commissioner’s role after newspapers published transcripts of the commission’s hearings. The statement, released on May 16, quoted O’Sullivan as saying she believed “dissent was not disloyalty” and she never regarded McCabe as malicious. It added that she was legally precluded from commenting on matters discussed at the commission.

“Charleton has been told the statement was circulated by O’Sullivan to Garda Headquarters on a private Gmail account, which deleted emails after 30 days, before its release. Copies were retained by Garda Headquarters as they were sent to official accounts. The email thread shows Prone had advised O’Sullivan.”

Meanwhile.

Two separate attempts earlier this year, by journalists Ali Bracken, of the Irish Daily Mail, and Ken Foxe, to obtain details of An Garda Siochana’s hiring of the Communications Clinic, under the Freedom of Information Act, have been rejected.

Specifically, Mr Foxe sought “copies of any emails between the Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and PR consultant Terry Prone or the Communications Clinic during the period in which those services were provided to AGS.”

In addition.

The Department of Justice paid the Communications Clinic €2,336, €756 and €24,221 in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively.

Two weeks ago, the Department of Justice released a series of emails which showed how, on Saturday, July 4, 2015, RTÉ journalist John Burke sent a press query to the Garda Press Office.

Mr Burke asked about the former Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan’s counsel questioning Sgt Maurice McCabe’s motivation at the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation.

Subsequent to this, in an email from the Department of Justice Secretary General Office Assistant Secretary Ken O’Leary to the then Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, Mr O’Leary stated Ms O’Sullivan phoned him “to let me know they had received queries from Colm O’Nongain [sic] about Sgt McCabe”.

Mr O’Leary added that the Garda Press Office was asked “was it the Garda Commissioner who had instructed counsel to adopt an aggressive stance towards Sgt McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission”.

He told Ms Fitzgerald: “The Gardai are not commenting.”

He then went on to advise Ms Fitzgerald, who was scheduled to appear on RTE’s This Week on Sunday, July 5, 2015, to say the following:

“Both the Garda Commissioner [Noirin O’Sullivan] and myself have made it clear that Sgt McCabe is a valued member of the Force.”

She was also advised to say she couldn’t comment on the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation and that:

“…it would be wrong of anyone to make public comment which might interfere with or attempt to influence those proceedings in any way.”

In addition, Mr O’Leary also told Ms Fitzgerald that she could say:

“It would be wrong of anyone to make public comment which might interfere with or attempt to influence those proceedings in any way. The Commission clearly has to be let take its course.”

In the end, Ms Fitzgerald wasn’t asked about the matter when she appeared on RTE’s This Week on Sunday, July 5, 2015.

O’Sullivan ‘advised’ by PR guru about McCabe (John Mooney, The Sunday Times)

Previously: Getting Their Story Straight

Reputable History

Our Worst Fears

Five Years After

Was The Communications Clinic Hired To Deal With Mission To Prey Before It Was Even Broadcast?

Committee transcript via Oireachtas.ie