Tag Archives: Today With Seán O’Rourke

Presidential hopeful Gavin Duffy

This morning.

On RTÉ Radio’s One’s Today with Seán O’Rourke.

Presidential hopeful Gavin Duffy was interviewed by Mr O’Rourke.

At one point, Mr Duffy accused RTÉ of being a “fan club” of Michael D Higgins – who is hoping to retain his position in the Áras.

A tetchy exchange followed.

Mr O’Rourke later asked Mr Duffy about his work for Denis O’Brien after the publication of the Moriarty Tribunal in March 2011.

From the interview…

Gavin Duffy: “I think in a situation where we don’t have a Government in Northern Ireland, I think we’ve to start building bridges again. I think President Mary McAleese did huge work building bridges north and south, and east and west, on these islands.

“I’d have to say our incumbent didn’t follow on in that work and…”

Seán O’Rourke: “But hold on. I was there, I was in Windsor, we broadcast two programmes when he was on the State visit to the United Kingdom. Surely that was a seminal moment…”

Duffy: “That was an absolute seminal moment and when the United Kingdom queen came here, in 2011, also a seminal moment, and it shows what, you know, sometimes we dismiss these positions as just ceremonial. The queen just bowing her head in our Garden of Remembrance did more than a lot of political speeches would have done.

“But, on the ground work in Northern Ireland has not happened, in this presidential term. Like it did with Mary McAleese and her husband Martin McAleese. That’s just a fact.

“And I know RTÉ is a fan club for the, the, the president.”

O’Rourke: “Hold it right there.”

Duffy: “Yes, Seán.”

O’Rourke: “I don’t think you can say that.”

Duffy: “Well…”

O’Rourke: “Without back it up.”

Duffy: “OK. You know, RTÉ paid out a large amount of money, so large they’re embarrassed to tell what it was, for the debate in the last election…”

O’Rourke: “That had nothing to do with being a fan club for Michael D Higgins. It had everything to do with screwing up the handling, the mishandling of a tweet…”

Duffy: “Well sorry…when somebody in your control room is saying ‘we got him’ and that’s the evidence – you’ve asked me to back it up, Seán. I mean I didn’t want to get into this with you…”

O’Rourke: “That was something that was badly screwed up. Everybody was deeply embarrassed. A settlement was made, it had to be made. I don’t think you can join the dots…”

Duffy: “Why is the settlement a secret, Seán?”

O’Rourke: “I don’t think you can join, I don’t think you can join…”

Duffy: “”Why is the settlement a secret, Seán?”

O’Rourke: “…from there to what you’re saying.”

Duffy: “Yeah, but why is the settlement a secret?”

O’Rourke: “Because that’s what was agreed in court and I don’t know the answer to that question by the way, I’m just simply…”

Duffy: “I know but do you think when it’s a licence payers…”

O’Rourke: “I think for you to make a sweeping statement like you just did, I just had to call a halt to it or challenge you on it.”

Duffy: “Seán I accept that but you are saying when I was making a statement that Mary McAleese worked very hard on making bridges in Northern Ireland and the incumbent hasn’t – it was in that context that I made that reply to you. We haven’t worked…”

O’Rourke: “She had a particular background there and as does her husband Martin. They were in a particular position to use that in a way that other officer holders, other presidents were not able…”

Duffy: “I know but Seán but why don’t you just…I mean, look it, President Higgins is doing certain things…strengths…”

Talk over each other

Duffy: “Why don’t you just accept – he dropped the torch in Northern Ireland?”

O’Rourke: “That is a sweeping political statement for you to make and no doubt I’m happy to put it to him if he comes in next, cause we hope he does or between now and the 26th [of October, polling day]. But in any event…”

Later

O’Rourke: “Again, a spotlight has been shone on your dealings with Denis O’Brien. You make the point that your did very little in terms of the hours spent working for Denis O’Brien. But the question is though, it’s about when those hours were spent. It was on the day of the time the Moriarty Tribunal was released. Is it the case that your prepped him? Effectively fed him the lines to use when he was being interviewed about that on the Six One?”

Duffy: “This is an awkward one for me Seán because I’ve been saying it’s very important to be open and transparent and yet I have to be conscious of a client and confidentiality and, you know, sometimes, I might have been asked to go and talk to somebody to have, and I’m not talking about the particular gentleman you’ve raised. But I might have gone to have a chat with him, to tell them to go a different route than they might have gone, etc.

“But. Look. Like accountants, like barristers, like lawyers, who advise clients, etc, that remains client confidential and I offer them advice as well and that’s what I was doing. But I accept what you’re saying.

“It was at a significant time. But over a period of 20 years, it account for less than 40 hours. I wouldn’t call Denis O’Brien a significant client but, you know, he is a very public figure and therefore it’s legitimate that I would be asked questions about him and I’m happy to answer them as best as I can and as fully as I can.”

Previously: Sean Gallagher: Biffo’s Bagman

Listen back in full here

Emma Mhic Mathúna with her solicitor Cian O’Carroll at the High Court in June

This morning.

Following the death of mother-of-five and cervical cancer victim Emma Mhic Mhathúna, 37.

Emma’s solicitor Cian O’Carroll spoke to Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One.

In June, Emma sued both the HSE and the US laboratory which studied her smear tests, Quest Diagnostics, and agreed a settlement of €7.5 million.

Quest Diagnostics misread her two smear slides in 2010 and 2013 and she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2016.

Some 221 women have been affected by the CervicalCheck controversy.

Further to this.

Mr O’Carroll has asked why all of the errors haven’t been investigated.

He told Mr O’Rourke:

If you wanted to have a confidence in a laboratory, you must know that each error is investigated. And we’ve spoken to cervical screening experts around the world involved in Canada, Finland, New Zealand and the UK.

And they have all said to us here that it is essential that whenever a single critical error occurs that it’s investigated within the laboratory and that involves debriefing the person who made the error and finding out what caused it.

And that has never been done.

[Emma] was adamant all the way through that she wanted accountability. She was adamant all the way through that errors must be stopped. She said that so much money had to be paid by the laboratory would hopefully make them be more careful in future with screening.

But the State, the National Screening Service, has a primary obligation and, under the contract, they have the right to send in HIQA to investigate why those errors happened in those laboratories and they have an obligation to do it under normal standards of public health and public safety.

They haven’t done it.

…If you are going to have an analytical process, a scientific process within a laboratory – that must be investigated by a suitable set of cytologists who go in and that’s what HIQA do.

And I’m left wondering why is the HSE and the NSF so bent on avoiding the laboratory issue?

Why are they so determined to constantly refer to, as the minister again did yesterday, Minister Harris, spoke about Emma’s death in the context of the non-disclosure?

And didn’t acknowledge that non-disclosure did not kill that woman, failures in a laboratory in 2010 and 2013 did.

And it is inexcusable that today, following her death, there is still not a clear and determined statement from the State saying we will investigate why those slides and so many hundreds of others were critically misread in those laboratories.

In the US and in Ireland, it just so happens that Emma’s two errors were in the same laboratory Quest Diagnostics in New Jersey.

Listen back in full here

On his RTÉ Radio One show this morning, Seán O’Rourke managed to not ask Irish Independent editor Fionnan Sheahan about yesterday’s High Court decision yesterday to allow inspectors from the Office of the Director Corporate Enforcement into the paper’s parent company.

The bias.

It never stops.

Good times

Yesterday: An Inspector Calls

The Scholiosis Advocacy Network writes:

Recorded March 6th 2017 – Minister Harris said no child will wait longer than 4 months for scoliosis surgery. 7th Aug 2018 – children continue to wait longer than 4 months for scoliosis surgery. No accountability, no communication to parents and children continue to deteriorate on surgery wait lists.

Meanwhile…

Scoliosis Advocacy Network (Facebook)

Previously: ‘He Was Listed For Surgery In 2016’

Joe Mulholland launching last year’s MacGill Summer School

This morning.

On RTÉ One’s Today With Seán O’Rourke show…

Dr Joe Mulholland, director of the MacGill Summer School in Donegal, joined Mr O’Rourke, while co-leader of the Social Democrats and TD Catherine Murphy was also on the line..

Dr Mulholland was responding to criticism of the predominance of men on the summer school’s panels.

Earlier, Ms Murphy and her co-leader Róisín Shortall said they wouldn’t take part in the event this year unless significant changes are made to the gender-balance of panels across all sessions.

From the interview…

Joe Mulholland: “There’s be at least one woman on every panel I think. So it’s, I suppose, it’s, if you want to say 25% roughly. And I know that this is not enough, of course. And efforts have been made by me, over the years, to balance, to have a better balance, gender balance, but then we have other balances that we look after as well, political balance or socio-economic, political balance and so on. So I have done my best, those who are close to me, who have advised me here in Dublin, on this programme, know that every time I see them, I say ‘let’s think about women’.”

Seán O’Rourke: “Yeah, well, what do you say to the comment made by Catherine Murphy, when you say ‘finding women with the right aptitude’, she finds that very offensive.”

Mulholland: “Well I think that was a wrong, it was, a call last night, fairly late, and pretty jaded, to be honest and that was a totally wrong term to use and I apologise for that and I withdraw it. It wasn’t what I meant. Maybe the right qualifications or whatever but it’s sometimes difficult and, I mean, the amount of women, the number of women who are on the programme does not represent the number of women who have been invited on to the programme but for whatever, for different reasons, just weren’t available. This is towards the end of July.

“It’s an extremely difficult time. Donegal is still quite a remote place. And it makes it difficult for a lot of people.”

O’Rourke: “Joe I’m looking at a tweet here from Sarah McInerney, a colleague here on the Late Debate and also presenter on TV3 or their politics show. She says that ‘Let’s see, MacGill. You could replace Stephen Collins with Geraldine Kennedy; Pat Cox with Catherine Day; Stephen Donnelly with Louise O’Reilly; Phillip Lane with Shannon Donnery – that’s in the Central Bank – David Quinn with Maria Steen and Fintan O’Toole with Justine McCarthy. Now there you are: one, two, three…that’s six.”

Mulholland: “Well, it’s not just a question of replacing those people. I mean, all have been chosen for whatever reasons, but it’s not as simple as that and a lot of time goes into this, as you can imagine of trying to get a programme that’s coherent, cohesive and, above all that, reflects, reflects social and economic and political life in Ireland. And, okay, I have failed obviously from the point of view of the gender balance.”

O’Rourke: “Just on the numbers, Mary O’Regan has done a tot, she’s the news editor in the Sunday Business Post, on your website. Fifty-two speakers of whom 12 are women. Catherine Murphy, are you not running the risk now, of yourself and Róisín Shortall’s withdrawal – that’ll make the balance even worse and it could ruin maybe and if other people do the same thing a really reputable and a fine, I mean it’s been making a contribution for what – 30 years or more?”

Catherine Murphy: “Yeah, Seán, I’ve spoken at the MacGill Summer School and we were very happy to do it in the past but I think that there’s a point where you do have to make a stand on something and I’m quite sure and I know Joe will have put a huge, and his team, will have put a huge amount of effort into the summer school. I don’t disagree with that. But the gender imbalance is so significant and if we’re talking about the future of Ireland and a new Europe, the challenges ahead, that can’t be done without women.

“Because they have been, they have not played a central role in so many ways in the design of the past. Your own wonderful programme last night on RTÉ – in terms of No Country For Women – really demonstrates that that has to change. And women have to be an equal part of this narrative.”

O’Rourke: “And to go back to Joe. Joe Mulholland, is there anything you can do, at this stage, to retrieve the situation?”

Mulholland: “Well I mean this, as I said to somebody else earlier on, this concerns that area of Donegal, Sean, that you know well. I would hate to have to abandon the school altogether, it has crossed my mind, but it would be irresponsible to do that. There are people, we fill all the B&Bs around the place, people depend hugely on that bit of extra money to send kids to school in the autumn and…”

O’Rourke: “I know but I mean, so you wanted to go ahead, but could you not, I mean women can drive to Donegal just as easily as men to participate in this. I’m just wondering if you should throw your net out again, maybe cast it a bit wider and, you know, that imbalance is actually worse than 25%. I mean maybe you could get it up to 35% or 45% by inviting a few more speakers or even going for a few all-female panels.”

Mulholland: “Well, look, Seán, if you’ve a few minutes on your hands maybe, you would come and advise and do a bit of work for me. But I don’t, let me not flippant. I mean there’s certainly no policy of not having women. Last year, I was just looking at last year’s programme. There was one panel on health. One of our key sessions – there was three women out of four, including, indeed Róisín [Shorthall] on it and Susan Mitchell [of the Sunday Business Post] and Rhona Mahony [ Master of the National Maternity Hospital] of Holles Street. So, you know, I mean nobody, nobody commented on that and that’s fine. But there is no certainly no thinking on my mind of: that women are not as good as men. In fact, I think they’re superior in very many ways…”

O’Rourke: “And in fairness to you, Joe, in your long career in RTÉ, you always made sure there was a gender balance in women who got promoted to positions, be they as presenters or correspondents…”

Mulholland: “I tried to…based on ability, Sean. Never as tokenism. And, you know, I didn’t believe in the policy of positive discrimination. Nor would very many women believe in it. But certainly promoting women, where at all possible, and I think there should be far more women in politics and there are not as many as we want and need and in our different institutions – some of which have failed miserably…”

O’Rourke: “I’ve taken my eye off the clock…”

Mulholland: “…disfunctionality…”

O’Rourke: “I really have to leave it. Look, Joe Mulholland, Dr Joe Mulholland, director of the MacGill Summer School and also my thanks to Catherine Murphy, TD for Kildare North, co-leader of the Social Democrats…”

Listen back in full here

Earlier: School’s Out

John Downing of The Irish Independent

This morning.

On RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Sean O’Rourke show.

They covered the INM data breach story!!

At 11.58am .

Two minutes before the show ended.

During the Friday Gathering slot, Mr O’Rourke asked John Downing, of the Irish Independent, about the alleged hacking at Independent News and Media of its own staff and others.

Séan O’Rourke: “How concerning is this for you?”

Downing: “It’s been a bad week for Irish Independent, Independent newspapers generally. I’ve worked a chunk of a life there, in two different sessions. I’ve spent nearly 20 years working for them – a great place to be more usually.

Dismay and concern, the life and blood of journalism is the integrity of protecting and protecting sources – without it, nothing. It’s a subject of two major investigations, a high court hearing in ten days, it’s difficult to say too much more in any kind of detail.

The only positive I did take from it was that the paper has led the coverage of this sensitive issue to their own organisation. And, in doing that, maintained the separation between the commercial and the editorial.”

O’Rourke: “So no pulling of punches in the coverage?”

Downing: “Absolutely not. They’ve been ahead of the other news organisations.”

O’Rourke:Well I suppose it has more information than any of the others.”

O’Rourke and panellists laugh

Downing: “Perhaps…but as you know, when issues affect, when RTÉ becomes the story, as it does from time to time also, it’s a tricky one to try and manage

O’Rourke: “[inaudible]…the DG.”

Downing: “Exactly.”

O’Rourke: [laughs]. Anyway, look, those occasions, we’ll leave it there.”

Hmm.

Listen back in full here

Pic via Independent.ie

Meanwhile…

Today’s Irish Independent.

Ah here.

From top: Bill Kenneally; Darragh Mackin; Jason Clancy, Colin Power, Paul Walsh and Barry Murphy

This morning.

On RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke.

Mr O’Rourke interviewed Jason Clancy, who was abused by sports coach Bill Kenneally approximately 300 times over a three-and-a-half year period as a young teenager in Waterford in the 1980s.

Kenneally received a 14-year sentence in February 2016 after pleading guilty to ten sample counts of indecently assaulting ten boys between 1984 and 1987 – on foot of Mr Clancy coming forward in 2012.

Mr Clancy’s lawyer Darragh Mackin, of KRW Law in Belfast, and Labour leader Brendan Howlin were also interviewed as part of the segment.

The interview followed the making of a Facebook video by five men who were abused by Kenneally – Colin Power, Barry Murphy, Paul Walsh, Kevin Keating and Jason Clancy.

In the video, the men repeated their claim that certain gardai, the South Eastern Health Board, members of the Catholic Church, certain politicians and certain businessmen knew of the abuse and that it continued despite their knowledge of it.

They also repeated their call for the Commission of Inquiry – which the Department of Justice announced would take place on May 30, 2017 – to no longer be delayed.

Yesterday, the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan released a statement saying that, on foot of legal advice from the Attorney General, the commission cannot get underway as criminal investigations are ongoing (see full statement below).

In this morning’s interview, Mr Mackin rejected Mr Flanagan’s assertion that a Commission of Inquiry cannot run parallel to a criminal investigation, pointing out that the Leveson Inquiry, the Hillsborough Inquiry and the Grenfell Inquiry have occurred while a criminal investigation was/is ongoing.

He also said that the Government has not made it clear what could be prejudicial.

Also during the interview, Mr Howlin said four witnesses in relation to Kenneally have died in the past 12 months.

Mr Clancy also said he’d like to meet the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan together in person so they can discuss the matter face to face.

From the interview…

Sean O’Rourke: “Bring us back, remind people, some of whom may not be familiar with your story, how you came in contact with Bill Kenneally and what he did.”

Jason Clancy: “I was unfortunate enough to live around the corner from Bill Kenneally where I grew up. The neighbours used to have a Sunday morning soccer, friendly soccer matches, every Sunday morning. I was invited up by a good neighbour of ours when I was about 13 to play. And Bill Kenneally played there and that’s when I initially came in contact with him.”

O’Rourke: “And how quickly did the abuse start?”

Clancy: “The abuse started, I’d say, about six months from when I met him.”

O’Rourke: “And it went on for how long?”

Clancy: “My abuse went on for, I think about three and a half years. It started just before my 14th birthday and it went on then until I was about 16/17.”

O’Rourke: “And we know that there were other boys abused by him aswell. There were the 10 sample cases that I mentioned [earlier]. And were other boys abused at the same time as you were, or along with you?”

Clancy: “Oh yeah, I mean I was abused in the company of other boys, we were abused together and then also individually.”

O’Rourke: “Yeah, and you spoke on Prime Time, just about for instance, you were a tennis player, you were good at sport.”

Clancy: “Yes.”

O’Rourke: “You won a tennis tournament.”

Clancy: “That’s right, yeah.”

O’Rourke: “And you missed out on the presentation of the prize?”

Clancy: “Yeah, what happened was, I was playing in the Kilkenny Open and I was in the final and I won the final but Bill Kenneally arrived along, when I was coming off the court, and just said to me: ‘Get in the car’. And he drove me down to a forest area near the tennis club and abused me quite badly. And then I was brought back to the tennis club and the presentation was over. The lady who, I still remember her name, the lady who was organising the tournament, she ate me for having such bad manners that I didn’t turn up for the presentation and the photographs and so forth. She just handed me the trophy.”

“Like, I mean, I was just standing there and, you know, the abuse, I was probably used to the abuse at that stage but, you know, for somebody to just stand there and just say ‘you’re a disgrace to your tennis club’ and ‘it’s such bad manners’. And it stays with me to this day, you know?”

I was standing there in semen-soaked underpants and I couldn’t explain to her like, that, I just couldn’t do do it, you know?”

O’Rourke: “How long was it, Jason, before you were able to talk about this? I mean, for instance, did you talk with the other fellas who were being abused at the time?”

Clancy: “You know, we never actually spoke about it. We just never spoke about it, we just couldn’t, you know?”

O’Rourke: “And then you, just in the last few years, in 2012, you came forward and you made the disclosures and you waived your anonymity in court and, presumably, as adults, you were able to talk about it?”

Clancy: “As adults, yes, I was able to talk about it. I mean, what happened was I found out he was involved in a basketball club with young children, young boys. So I just knew, the day came, I had to do something, I have young children myself. So I think the decision was made for me to come forward. But I knew I had to do it, for the greater good, I had to do the right thing and I contacted the gardai.”

O’Rourke: “Now, he was sentenced for his crimes and the Government then announced last May that there would be this Commission of Inquiry but they’ve put a stay on that. It’s not happening. We’ll talk about the reasons why it’s not happening in a minute. But why is it important to you and to other victims that this commission carry out its work?.”

Clancy: “The information I suppose that has been gathered, you know, we know now that Bill Kenneally was a paedophile in Waterford city for a number of decades, in Waterford city. We are aware of that. Authorities knew about it. There’s a litany of examples that we can go to but we are fully aware, the Government are aware that gardai knew about the abuse; the South Eastern Health Board knew about the abuse; the Catholic Church knew about the abuse; politicians knew about the abuse and a number of business people in Waterford city were aware of the abuse.”

O’Rourke: “And obviously, the Government was persuaded that these allegations are so serious, and the situation, as to warrant this Commission of Inquiry but Charlie Flanagan, the Minister [for Justice], has put a statement out yesterday explaining that because there are inquiries still continuing into other cases, they can’t go ahead with this commission.”

Clancy: “Sean, the problem we have with that. The gardai confirmed to me that, in the course of their investigation – when I made my complaint – they ended up having to contact in excess of 100 people to give them the opportunity to make a statement and come forward. Now, out of that, 54 people made a statement and, from those 54 people, 10 people came forward, including myself.

What Charlie Flanagan is saying, basically, is that there are three victims who came forward last year and the Government don’t want any interference with their case against Bill Kenneally and, as a result, they are putting a stay on the inquiry or the Commission of Investigation.

O’Rourke: “Ok, actually, it might be the moment, at this stage, to talk to the solicitor, your solicitor Darragh Mackin.”

Clancy: “Absolutely.”

O’Rourke: “Good morning to you. You’re on the line from Belfast.”

Darragh Mackin: “Good morning, Sean.”

O’Rourke: “Can I just ask you to deal with the particular legal explanation that’s given by Charlie Flanagan in his statement, he says: ‘With an obligation on the commission, to disclose relevant information in its possession to a person giving evidence to the commission, this might compromise evidence that such persons might give in criminal proceedings, thus jeopardising the rights of the victims to having their complaints investigated and prosecuted and any potential accused to a fair trial.’ So that’s two ‘mights’ and one ‘potential’. The point is: they don’t want to prejudice any possibility of a fair trial.”

Mackin: “Yes, the starting point, from our perspective, is that we don’t accept that, we don’t accept them reasons whatsoever. We don’t accept them for two primary concerns. The first one is that this is not the reasons in their entirety.

We were originally given the reason that the inquiry could not begin due to the fact that there was an ongoing appeal against sentence. We rejected that assertion – given that it had absolutely no prejudice on a public inquiry.

“And the second basis is the one to which you refer – the idea that by the very fact that there are ongoing criminal investigations that that would in some way jeopardise or prejudice the inquiry. We say that is not correct and we say that it can be dealt with in very simple terms: public inquiries by their very genesis can have mechanisms to deal with and to prevent any element of prejudice on any other investigation.

“For example, the inquiry will, as we’ve seen in Charleton [the Disclosures Tribunal], can have a modular format where specific modules can be put to the end of the inquiry to prevent or to allow for any other investigations to occur in the meantime.

“Secondly, there is a huge raft of preparation required in this inquiry such as taking witness statements from Jason and the other victims who have already come forward and who’ve already spoken publicly about their case. That itself will require quite considerable time and can be done, it can be done in private, in the lead-up to the inquiry getting off the ground.

“So we say there are very, very good mechanisms that can be put in place and that are regularly put in place to ensure that there is no prejudice to any ongoing investigation.”

O’Rourke: “Charlie Flanagan’s statement says that it would be entirely inappropriate for this Government to take any action which risks seriously compromising those investigations and/or criminal proceedings.”

Mackin: “Well the starting point is this Sean: We have a situation therefore that an inquiry investigating the failures by the gardai is now being delayed by the very ones to which it’s being investigated.

“Because we have a situation where, one year ago, a further victim came forward, gave his complaint to the gardai, he hadn’t heard anything since, until I think it was 20 minutes after the story broke on RTE, that he then heard from the gardai again.

In fact, many victims were unaware that the file had even been passed to the DPP until the public statement by Mr Flanagan.”

O’Rourke: “Yeah, but I mean, these are live investigations, they’re ongoing in respect of a number of such cases – I’m again, quoting from the statement. Files have been sent to the DPP in relation to several cases. Directions are awaited.”

Mackin: “Let’s deal with this then, let’s deal with this very simple basis, the proposition that, because there’s an ongoing prosecution, let’s look at that. Leveson, the Leveson Inquiry in London, the Hillsborough Inquiry, the Grenfell Inquiry – three of the biggest public inquiries probably in the international scale, all three occurred at the exact same time as an ongoing criminal investigation. There is absolutely no reason, there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever that this inquiry cannot take place at the same time as a criminal investigation. 

“And we also must bear in mind that, at this stage, there has been no decision to prosecute or any decision to open up a criminal trial, so as it stands the inquiry, to which is being postponed, to which relevant evidence is being lost, let’s not forget that people have died since the commission of this inquiry in May 2017, let’s not forget that people are dying, that evidence is being lost, on the basis that there may be further criminal prosecutions.

“The reality is there can be steps, there can be mechanisms put in place to ensure that there is no prejudice and this boils down to the fact that the victims have no confidence in these reasons, they’ve no confidence in the process and they’ve no confidence in the situation that they are now being held to task, they are now being faced with obstacle after obstacle in an opaque system where they can’t even challenge the legal basis, other than to say it is prejudicial. There is no detail given as to what prejudice that would be.

Listen back in full here

In his statement, Mr Flanagan said:

“In the public interest, I wish to clarify matters relating to the Government decision in May to establish a Commission of Investigation into the handling of specific sexual abuse allegations in Waterford.

In responding to the very serious allegations about the handling of specific sexual abuse allegations in Waterford, the Government decided on 30 May 2017 to establish a Commission of Investigation. However, in deciding on the timing of such a Commission, the Government was obliged to take into account legal advice received from the Attorney General’s Office.

The legal issues that prevented the Commission from being established at this time related to additional complaints of sexual abuse received by An Garda Síochána.

With an obligation on the Commission to disclose relevant information in its possession to a person giving evidence to the Commission, this might compromise evidence that such persons might give in criminal proceedings, thus jeopardising the rights of the victims to having their complaints investigated and prosecuted and any potential accused to a fair trial.

It would be entirely inappropriate for this Government to take any action which risks seriously compromising those investigations and/or criminal proceedings.

Criminal investigations are ongoing in respect of a number of such cases and files have been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to several cases and directions are awaited. Any victims coming forward with allegations of sexual abuse are entitled to have their claims fully investigated and, where appropriate, prosecuted.

An Garda Síochána have given assurances that they will ensure that any victims who have reported allegations are contacted by a Garda liaison officer to ensure they are kept informed of any developments.

Therefore, even if a Commission were to be established now, its work would be seriously delayed to allow for the completion of outstanding investigations and prosecutions. This would not be in the public interest, or in the best interest of those directly affected.

As a result, the Government decided in May 2017 that a Commission of Investigation would be established when the outstanding legal issues are finalised. This decision was communicated to KRW Law by phone by an official in my Department following the Government meeting and has been reiterated in subsequent correspondence to them.

I continue to monitor developments in this case closely.

I wish to stress that any complainant who is not satisfied with the manner in which their allegations were dealt with by An Garda Síochána, has the option of contacting the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Office (GSOC) which is the independent body charged with receiving complaints from the public concerning members of An Garda Síochána.

Contact can be made with GSOC at their offices at 150 Upper Abbey Street, Dublin 1 and by telephone on Lo-Call 1890 600800.

Yesterday: ‘Waterford’s Big Dirty Secret’

Pic: Saoirse McGarrigle

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and Sean O’Rourke this morning

Further to Fianna Fail tabling a motion of no confidence in the Tanaiste and former Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald which effectively breaches the Confidence and Supply Agreement.

The party’s leader Micheál Martin spoke to Sean O’Rourke this morning on RTE Radio One.

Sean O’Rourke:So is there no going back now from the collapse of this government? Because you’ve torn up the Confidence and Supply Agreement.”

Micheál Martin: “Well we haven’t. This is a very core part of the agreement. Where there is an issue that causes a threat to the Government, there’s a specific clause within the Confidence and Supply Agreement which allows for the two leaders to engage on that issue. And I did that on Wednesday. I rang the Taoiseach on Wednesday and said, you know, I’m invoking the Confidence and Supply.

“There’s an issue here that will threaten, in my view, the Confidence and Supply Agreement and the Government. It has to do with the Tanaiste’s knowledge of a campaign, a legal strategy, to undermined the character and integrity of Maurice McCabe. It’s a very fundamental issue that goes to the heart of justice for every citizen in this country. Not just Maurice McCabe. It’s broader than that.

“And the State, in my view, should not, in any way, be complicit in undermining a man’s character or indeed his integrity, particularly on bogus grounds and the minister is aware of that at the time and choose not to act. Now I went, I spoke to Leo Varadkar, I indicated that we could no longer have no confidence. I didn’t publicise, I wanted to give him space and time.

“He said, could I come back to you? I said, you can. But the following day, that was yesterday, he didn’t come back. I did initiate contact again through our Chef de Cabinet with his special advisor and I then made contact by, I then had to phone, I didn’t text him, we spoke…”

O’Rourke: “This was a second conversation?”

Martin: “This was a second conversation yesterday which didn’t  come to a conclusion which didn’t, basically, he’s of a view, he’s saying that Frances Fitzgerald did nothing wrong. But the whole situation is so unsatisfactory because I made the point to him: look, Alan Kelly asked some very basic questions, right? If you look at the replies, I’d invite people to study them.

“Basically, the answers were avoided by those replies…avoided...”

Talk over each other

Martin: “I think Alan Kelly touched a raw nerve there. This documentation surfaced. There was people dithering around with him for 10 days. It’s extraordinary that that documentation never made its way to the Charleton inquiry [Disclosures Tribunal]. The Dail is misled on a number of occasions, and basic trust breaks down when something like that happens and basic trust and credibility about how this issue has been handled, but fundamentally goes to the character of Maurice McCabe and the attempt on…”

O’Rourke: ” [talk over each other]…in a few minutes. I just think the latest thing in from Martina Fitzgerald, our political correspondent quoting Government sources, saying the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has issued an open offer to the Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin to meet to discuss the ongoing crisis. Now, Regina Doherty told us that offer has been there for the past 24 hours. Why didn’t you take up the opportunity to meet face-to-face?”

Martin: “Sorry, I made it clear to the Taoiseach, I had no difficulty in meeting him last evening. And I made that clear to him…”

O’Rourke: “So could he not suggest a time? Could you not suggest a time? A breakfast this morning at 8am?”

Martin: “We had a discussion, we did not agree. We have to agree to disagree on the core issue. I’ve no difficulty meeting with the Taoiseach in relation to this but he knows our position. We don’t want an election.  I made that clear in the phone call to him.”

O’Rourke: “But you have caused an election..”

Martin: “No, sorry Sean, we haven’t. And let’s be very straight about this, there was a big failure here to stand by the character of Maurice McCabe. To allow state agencies essentially to go and essentially…”

Talk over each other

O’Rourke:What do you know now about Maurice McCabe and Frances Fitzgerald’s state of knowledge or action or inaction

Martin: “That she…”

O’Rourke: “No, no..that you didn’t know two years ago or even one and a half years ago?

Martin:That she was aware of it. I didn’t know that two years ago, that she was aware of this strategy...”

Talk over each other

O’Rourke: “When Mick Clifford and Katie Hannon had revelations about the events and the exchanges in the O’Higgins Commission, everybody was aware of it at that stage…”

Martin:Nobody was aware, in terms of that, no one knew that the Minister knew at the time, in advance of the legal strategy being prepared. I mean it was a notification went around, basically saying to the minister, the secretary general, to the assistant secretary, and others, that the Garda Commissioner is now advancing a legal strategy to undermine the character and integrity  of Maurice McCabe.

O’Rourke: “Even if they did know…”

Martin: “Can I also say, Sean, this, I had all this with Tusla as well. Now my patience has been stretched on this issue. And I’ve been involved with it for quite some time. It was I who led to the establishment of the Guerin report by bringing that dossier into Dail Eireann and showing it to Enda Kenny, detailing serious malpractice with An Garda Siochana.

“That then, by the way, that report said Maurice McCabe was a man of strong character and integrity. I believe Mr Guerin put that in for a reason. It then, he recommended the  O’Higgins report and  that happened. It was never meant to be an adversarial engagement. It was meant to be inquisitorial…”

O’Rourke: “You’ve known since Katie Hannon’s revelations that that was the thing being adopted…”

Martin:The adversarial nature of it became known in May 2016 but we didn’t  know the Government was complicit in it.”

Earlier: Unredacted

Derek Mooney: What Happened

Listen back in full here

From top: Joan Burton; Regina Doherty; Public Service card sample; TJ McIntyre

This morning.

TJ McIntyre, chairman of Digital Rights Ireland and former Minister for Social protection  Joan Burton appeared on RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Seán O’Rourke to discuss the Public Service Card.

Mr McIntrye believes the PSC is being rolled out as a national ID card by stealth while current social protection minister Regina Doherty described the card as “Mandatory not compulsory”.

Sean O’Rourke: “The Minister for Social Protection Regina Doherty has given assurances about the security and operation of the Public Services Card. Mrs Doherty said she wanted to encourage all users of public sector services to apply for the card and explained the benefits of having one.”

[plays recording of Regina Doherty]

“We want to make access to the services more efficient so that you don’t have to give all the information again to the HSE or the Department of Education or whoever else it is that you are providing your data to so that once you’ve authenticated who you are, that you are who you are, that you shouldn’t ever have to go through that process ever again.”

O’Rourke: “On the line now, TJ McIntyre from Digital Rights Ireland, and Labour TD for Dublin West Joan Burton herself a former Social Protection Minister and I think, Joan Burton, it was you as Minister for Social Protection who introduced this card in the first place?”

Burton:
“Absolutely, Seán and it has actually been extremely successful, if you were to talk to a lot of pensioners who when they reached the age of 66 they can get a card and they use it for instance for the free travel, if people who are over 66 have a look at their card they can see a little “FT” and if they have a spouse who would also claim the free travel being with them they’ll see a little S beside it, so in fact the card, which is now held I think by 2.8 million people, has been enormously successful.

But, and there is a but, the government has to respect that this is people’s personal data and they have to be able to assure people that their data is being treated absolutely with respect and that it’s not unwittingly passed on to any other agency or any other organisation and really the government have to tell people about it.

When we were rolling it out, when I was rolling it out we wrote to everybody, we invited them to come in, I think if other departments are going to actually get involved they need to do the same and equally to train the civil servants that this is people’s personal private data and they must respect their privacy.”

O’Rourke:
“There seems to be uncertainty, for instance, as to whether farmers applying for grants, particularly EU payments, will have to use this card. Should we be told, well I suppose we’ll be told eventually, is there any reason why they shouldn’t have to?”

Burton:
“Well, you could say, the main reason nowadays if you think about the use, if people at home think about the use of their phones and their iPads and so on, there’s a great deal of exchange of information electronically, but the holding of information by the government or indeed by public bodies or by any other body of people’s personal private data has to be treated in a very respectful, very careful and very safe way.

Now already, in terms of the card for instance, its widely used and I think pretty popular among, for instance, people who have free travel, I think it’s also popular among the companies, you know, like CIE, the trains, the buses and the Luas because it allows them for instance to cut down on inappropriate use, where that might be happening, in a small number of cases.

We really actually also need to have to look at it very strongly from an individual’s, citizen’s rights point of view and, you know, civil servants, you know, can’t as it were just run away with themselves on it and say, look we will bring you better services which definitely is a product of using IT properly, but we need to tell people about it.

You’d be a bit concerned at the moment that the Government has gone for, if you like in principle, some expansion of the service, which is fine, but they have to bring the public and citizens along with this and explain it to them in detail. I know some people going for a driving licence, for instance, for the driver theory test, have been quite surprised as to why they have to give, have to have a card, now again, I think young people who are about to get a driver’s licence, they’ll be happy to get it, I don’t think there’s any difficulty about that, but it needs to be explained to them and what then it might be used for.”

O’Rourke:
“Stay with us Joan Burton, because I want to go now to TJ McIntyre, as I say he’s Chair of Digital Rights Ireland also lecturer at the UCD Sutherland School of Law, good morning to you and thank you for joining us, what are your misgivings about this, I mean is it just a question of it being properly explained?”

McIntyre:
“No, not at all, I mean most fundamentally the legal basis isn’t there for this type of widespread data sharing. You have to remember of course that an ID card isn’t just a card, it’s also about an underlying database. It’s about how information is shared within government, about how many civil servants, how many people in different agencies, all have access to your private information.

So in 2014, the outgoing Information Commissioner Billy Hawkes said about the Department of Social Protection in particular, that, he singled it out for criticism, that he was entirely unsatisfied with the arrangements in place for the oversight of personal data in that Department.

My problem initially is that I don’t think that things have necessarily improved since then. We have a massive unified database, which takes information from other State agencies, bringing it all within the reach of people in the Department of Social Protection, without any safeguards being in place.”

O’Rourke: “What kind of safeguards, and we should tell our listeners for instance, we’re speaking with you on Skype, there may be a slight delay in our exchanges, but what kind of safeguards should be introduced or built into the system in your view?”

McIntyre: “Well European law is very clear on this, if you want to take personal information from people if you want to share private information between government departments, there has to be a legal basis. There needs to be primary legislation passed by the Oireachtas, it needs to say what private information can be acquired, who can acquire this information.

The law as it stands doesn’t do this, the law as it stands deals solely with the social welfare context, it doesn’t say use of personal data, the use of an ID card is a requirement for sitting a driver theory test and the main problem I have with this is that de facto this has become a compulsory item, this is something you have to have to function in society.

Now Regina Doherty has said that this is mandatory but not compulsory which is a type of Jesuitical hairsplitting that is a credit to her understanding of philosophy, but I think for the rest of us it doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation which is that if you can’t recover your pension without it if you can’t get a driving licence without it, if you can’t get a passport without it it is effectively compulsory .

It is booming an national ID card without any legal basis sidestepping any oversight by the Oireachtas and we need to have a public debate about that.”

O’Rourke: “But isn’t there great merit in just having the convenience of being able to establish who you are with such a range of authorities who can dispense a service be it a passport or a pension or whatever what’s wrong with the idea if the necessary legislation is put in place.

TJ McIntyre: “I love the idea Seán but that’s not the reality. So you mentioned passports for instance, wouldn’t it be great if you could just show your public services card to get a passport. in fact the Department of Foreign Affairs even though it insists on you having a Public Services card to get a passport doesn’t trust a Public Services card, you have to go in front of the Garda and verify your identity on the old fashioned way.

What’s happened here is that the Public Services card has become a sort of window dressing layered on top of the existing process you still have to fill lout paper forms you still have to take the old fashioned passport photographs, you still have to go into the Garda Station there’s no streamlining here, it’s just an additional cost.

This is something which has cost 60 million Euros or thereabouts to date and we really haven’t seen a return on that investment in efficiency or in terms of for instance the prevention of fraud.”

O’Rourke:
“And coming back I should say to you Joan Burton, this notion that there’s no legal basis for people taking, say the driver theory test, surely that is a hiatus or at least a legal oversight or something which should have been put through the Dail properly?”

Burton: “I think, Sean, that what TJ is saying makes an awful lot of sense in terms of the protection of citizens’ rights and citizens’ privacy and I certainly know that the Commissioner that he’s referring to, there have been and they have been widely publicised in the papers over the last decade,.

Maybe ten or so more years ago there were a number of cases which involved people using, in some cases the cases are in the public domain, the media, in some cases people like insurance investigators having wrong access to social welfare information and utilising that in addition  to adjudicating on instance claims.

Now any use like that is completely wrong and actually it’s also illegal and if that is what TJ is concerned about he’s right to be concerned about it because as Minister I was also concerned about it and when i was Minister for Social Protection there was a widespread system of training people in the significant importance of privacy of people’s personal data. Now to some extent this is to some degree a cultural change in Ireland, you’re giving your information as a citizen in order to allow the State to provide you services more quickly and more efficiently and an lawful lot of that has actually happened.

It doesn’t mean that there is no problem in people accessing services, far from it, but what I do accept is that if it is being rolled out more widely it would be wise of the current government to look further at having a further development of charters in relation to citizen’s rights, having a look at European law and seeing there if there is potential for Citizen’s Charters in Ireland but the corollary of that, and it’s just as important, is that the public servants who use the info must be trained and must be heavily penalised if they infringe on social data.”

O’Rourke:
“What do you say Joan Burton, as a former Minister for Social Protection, about the case of an elderly woman as reported being denied her pension because she just wouldn’t, she wasn’t prepared to sign up for that card.

Burton: “Well obviously, I think that particular case is a matter for the current minister and, I mean, it is for the Minister to address that but in all honesty…”

O’Rourke:
“No, hold on, you were the Minister in office who brought in this card which this woman objects to…”

Burton:
“Absolutely, and in fact we had nothing but co-operation from senior citizens by the way we also discovered and this is also important and I am sure TJ will agree with this, in the current development of IT, identity test is a very very serious….”

O’Rourke: “Hold on, you are going on a bit of a detour, can you deal with the woman who was refused her pension because she objected in principle to, wouldn’t sign up for, this card?”

Burton:
“That’s for the Minister to address.”

O’Rourke: “Well, how would you have handled it?”

Burton: “First of all, I don’t know the background in particular to this…”

O’Rourke:
“The woman wouldn’t sign up for the card. What would you do if you were the Minister?”

Burton: “I think you would have officials of the Department have a discussion with her, talk to her to see how the issues could be addressed, I don’t want to comment on the case because I don’t have the background detail but all I know from my experience as Minister for Social Protection is literally every case is different so I don’t want to make a general comment which could be in some way unfair to the Minister or unfair to the officials or indeed to the woman herself, they should sit down and talk to her…”

O’Rourke: “Yeah, but if she’s not prepared to do it you’re basically saying, make her do it…you seem to be taking a view that, look, you know, the civil servants will just find a way to make her sign up for it.”

Burton:
“Not particularly, I think whatever issues the woman has need to be examined and addressed.”

O’Rourke: “How would you address them?”

Burton:
“How? By literally finding out what the actual detailed situation was and what the facts in the case were.”

O’Rourke:
“The situation is that she doesn’t want to sign up for one of these cards.”

Burton:
“That’s for the woman herself to explain to the officials. I’m not going to make a judgment on it but what I would say is that a huge number of retired people have the card, they use it in particular in context of the free travel pass and it has been an enormous success.”

O’Rourke:
“Just to explain one thing, does it effectively remove the need for the free travel pass or does it entitle you to get the pass?”

Burton: “The old pass is no longer required. If you have free travel the public service card has an “FT” on it, there’s an “S” beside that which indicates where the spouse has an entitlement as well, it’s used up and down the country all the time when I’m on the train or on buses and so on people refer to it and I’d say for the vast majority of people it’s intensely useful.

The Department of Social Protection, Sean, you know, has a huge number of transactions with people at different stages of their life in every single corner of the country you’ll appreciate if I said John Murphy, Joan Murphy or Siobhan Murphy, we have multiple similar names in Ireland so you have standing numbers being used in the old days for tax and social insurance and these numbers then form the basis of your access to services but you do want, any Minister for Social Protection wants, to make sure that the right money goes to the right person but the other side of this is that having this information you really need to protect people’s privacy.”

O’Rourke:
“TJ McIntyre, is this a situation which may be fixed or to they need to scrap the card?”

TJ McIntyre:
“Well maybe I can go back a bit and talk about that case of the pensioner because it really illustrates a very significant problem. There’s two real concerns here one is that the legislation doesn’t say public service cards are mandatory to get benefits including pensions, the legislation says the Minister may use them to verify identity but it doesn’t say it’s the only way in which you may verify someone’s identity.

So if an elderly woman is being bullied into getting a Public Services card where there are other equally good ways of authenticating identity such as passport that is fundamentally unlawful. The Minister can’t adopt a blank policy, can’t fetter her discretion in this way by saying I’m only going to take one form of identification.”

O’Rourke:
“So you’re saying there is no legal basis for denying this lady in her 70s a pension on the basis of her refusal to sign up for the card?”

McIntyre:
“Where a Minister is given a discretion such as a discretion to verify identity in one way that’s a discretion that has to be exercised reasonably and proportionately and lawfully, and where a Minister has a discretion to use a different means of authentication such as a passport they can’t fetter their discretion, they can’t adopt a blanket policy which says we’re only going to take this card. That’s the first problem.

The second problem is why have they adopted this blanket policy? The reason here, and I think we’re only seeing it come to light now, the Government has signed up to a deal with the providers of the cards where there’s a target of three million cards to be issued by the end of the year,

If the Government doesn’t get three million out the door the Government has to pay for 3 million cards regardless and it appears to me that there is a mad push on at the moment to get people to sign up for as many cards as possible to hit that target without regard to the questions of proportionality or indeed the legality of doing so.”

O’Rourke: “Joan Burton, would you accept the argument that there’s no legal basis for insisting that this is the only way in which people scan prove their eligibility for a pension?”

Burton: “No I would say first of all and I just want to come back to an earlier point that TJ made when he said it was an ID card, the Public Services card is not an ID card, it’s a card for the use of obtaining public services in the first instance and what I was involved with for the purposes of social welfare entitlements and also there’s a long integration of tax information with social insurance information as I think everybody is aware of going back into when the social welfare system in Ireland broadly started in the 1950s.

Coming back, though, to the discretion of the Minister, obviously any Minister has to be aware of the different circumstances of different individuals and seek to address those as well as they can within the law but the law does specifically provide for the Department of Social Protection sharing information where it’s governed by law with other government departments.

Now what I am concerned about at the moment is that the Government is clearly intent on embarking an expansion on the use of the card and for utilising people’s card and social insurance numbers. What I am saying is that if this is happening people have to be advised and told about this and if law is required then that legislation has to be put into effect.”

O’Rourke:
“Right… a lot of confusion about this, TJ McIntyre, aside from the need for safeguards obviously to be built in, is there a need for fresh legislation if you say there is no legislative grounds for denying somebody a pension on the ground that he or she is refusing to sign up for one of these cards?”

McIntyre:
“I think you are absolutely right in this regard. There is no legal basis for a blanket policy which says we are going to deny people certain types of benefits for example if they don’t sign up for the card, that’s not what legislation says.

Equally, there’s a a need under European law for specific legislation about sharing this information with other State agencies, with the private sector in some cases, again we don’t have that at the moment but in a wider sense I think it’s important to step back a little bit and ask where is the public debate about this issue generally.

The reason we’re concerned about this is that it’s taken on the status of what is effectively an ID card, it’s taken on the nature of being effectively compulsory for everyone living in Ireland if you want to engage in day to day activities but without any public debate on the basis of a creeping expansion.

bear in mind that when the card was introduced first it was a simple piece of plastic, no chip, no photograph, it’s gradually acquired all these characteristics since and I think most fundamentally we’re saying that, if this has to be done we need a proper public debate about it,.

We need to discuss the experience of ID cards in other countries and the safeguards they have put in place, and this is something that has to be done by our elected representatives in the Oireachtas, not as a series of creeping administrative measures.”

Listen back here

From top: Dr Rory Hearne; From his paper ‘A home or a Wealth Generator’?

A conference, entitled Solid Foundations? Economic Inequality and the Housing Crisis, will take place in the Croke Park Conference Centre in Dublin, organised by TASC, next Friday (June 16).

One of the speakers will be post-doctoral researcher at Maynooth University Dr Rory Hearne, who will present his research A Home of a Wealth Generator? Inequality, Financialisation and the Irish Housing Crisis.

Ahead of this.

Dr Hearne was interviewed on Today with Seán O’Rourke earlier today.

Rory Hearne: “My analysis is that the Government’s policy and strategy, up to this point, has been inadequate in terms of social housing or even new forms, and what I propose is, and support others, like the Nevin Institute, towards the idea of an affordable rental housing company. That the Government is not doing enough to directly supply itself and what it has done is it’s over-focussed on incentivising private sector.

And by doing this incentivisation, whether that’s reduction in apartment sizes or it’s the Help To Buy scheme to try and introduce demand, that it has in actual fact inflated rents and inflated house prices and contributed to the crisis.

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