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Garda Commission Nóirín O’Sullivan

As previously stated, An Garda Síochána has fully accepted the findings and recommendations of the O’Higgins Commission. We will examine what lessons can be learnt and ensure the issues arising are fully addressed.

Our immediate concern, arising out of the O’Higgins Commission, must be with victims who believe – with justification, they were not dealt with properly by An Garda Síochána.

We are sorry the victims did not get the service they were entitled to, and we will seek to work with them.

A key element of our modernisation and renewal programme is ensuring victims are at the
heart of the Garda Service and they get the service they are entitled to.

In order to ensure a victim centred approach our first steps have been the setting-up of 28 Victim Service Offices throughout the country to keep victims up-to-date on the progress of their case through the justice system and the establishment of the National Protective Services Bureau, which among its work provides support for vulnerable victims.

These measures will help ensure we meet our obligations under the EU Victim Rights Directive.

We are learning from our past mistakes and following a number of reports in recent years, improvements in relation to how An Garda Síochána conducts investigations, manages incidents, trains its personnel, and liaises with victims of crime have been introduced or are in the process of being introduced as part of An Garda Síochána’s modernisation and renewal programme.

Every day, the men and women of An Garda Síochána do great work to protect and support
communities. In doing this, they consistently show great depth of character, resolve and commitment.

The initiatives we are undertaking as part of our modernisation and renewal programme are designed to ensure they have the necessary supports to provide the very best service to the communities we serve.

I have been asked to clarify certain matters in relation to the proceedings before the
O’Higgins Commission.

I am legally precluded from so doing under section 11 of the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004, which provides that it is a criminal offence to disclose or publish any evidence given or the contents of any document produced by a witness.

The witnesses who gave evidence before the Commission did so on the expectation that
their evidence, except as may be included in the final report, would remain private.

Accordingly, I have been advised that I cannot discuss the details of any proceedings before the O’Higgins Commission.

I have consistently and without exception, within An Garda Síochána and in public, stated clearly that dissent is not disloyalty, that we must listen to our people at every level with respect and with trust, and that we stand to gain, rather than lose, when members bring to our attention practices they believe to be unacceptable.

Like every member of An Garda Síochána, Sergeant Maurice McCabe’s contribution is
valued and the service has changed for the better in response to the issues about which he complained.

I want to make it clear that I do not – and have never, regarded Sergeant McCabe as malicious.

Any member of An Garda Síochána who raises issues will be fully supported.

Each and every one of them must know they have the right and responsibility to raise their concerns and be confident that they will be listened to and addressed.

They won’t always be right and we in management won’t always be right either. But we are on a journey towards a markedly better policing service and we will learn from
every mistake we make.

A statement from Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan released tonight.

Previously: Nothing To Say Here

Nóirín’s Disgust

McCabe And Ms O’Sullivan

Rollingnews

Sinead

UPDATE: It’s being reported that Sinéad has been found safe and well.

Sinead O’Connor missing, possibly ‘suicidal’ TMZ

Pic: Clash

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Last Saturday in Dublin.

Members and supporters of the Irish Refugee Council, End Direct Provision Dublin and the Dublin Calais Solidarity gathered at St Stephen’s Green, the Central Bank, and the Italian Quarter to raise awareness about the humanitarian crisis concerning refugees.

Irish Refugee Council

Thanks Caroline Reid

90418806derek

From top: Brendan Howlin and Alan Kelly at Labour Party’s Annual James Connolly Commemoration at Arbour Hill Cemetry yesterday; Derek Mooney

Labour’s Alan Kelly rose without trace and now won’t go away.

Derek Mooney writes:

“There’s no Labour problem that Ken (Livingstone) can’t make worse.”

This was Alan Johnson’s response to the former London Mayor’s latest unwelcome intervention in a UK Labour row.

Substitute the name “Alan Kelly” for “Ken Livingstone” and Johnson’s axiom could just be as applicable here.

Perhaps it’s his pugnacious ‘I tell it like it is’ style, but Alan Kelly has come to be personally identified with two of the last government’s biggest political failures: Irish Water to the housing crisis, not to mention his “power is a drug… it suits me” interview or his penchant for adding to his own party’s travails.

While Kelly’s supporters can argue that he inherited the policy messes that were Irish Water and housing/homelessness, he knew what he was getting into and still decided that the best approach was the one he adopted: the unpopular populist.

So, why is the Labour party giving even the slightest consideration to making Kelly its next leader?

The sad reality for Ireland’s oldest political party is that the choices facing it are severely limited. While it can opt for the safe pair of hands that it is Brendan Howlin, Howlin comes with a lot of baggage, not least over 20 years as a political insider, even when Labour was in opposition, Howlin managed to hold office as Leas Ceann Comhairle 2007 – 2011.

Sean Sherlock may seem, in contrast, like a more likeable and fresher option, indeed the 400+ people who replied to my Twitter poll rated him much higher than Kelly, but that very freshness that may be his biggest weakness.

Sherlock has never been seriously tested and does he possess the gravitas or presence to carve out a niche for Labour against so many bigger opposition beasts? The same questions hang over Jan O’Sullivan.

So does Labour have to take another look at Kelly?

It’s the question Labour TDs will be asking themselves over the coming days and – depending on their decision – it may be the question that party members will have to wrestle with thereafter, if Kelly’s nomination can get past the parliamentary party.

Given that Kelly secured over 50% of the vote when he won the Deputy Leadership back in July 2014, the parliamentary party would be unwise to deny members the right to have the final say.

To deny Kelly the right to run, in favour of a Howlin coronation, may look like a good idea on paper, but it is the last thing that a party – that is now closer to extinction than Fianna Fáil was back in early 2011 – should do.

Labour needs to reconnect itself with its members and supporters – finding a way to cut the membership out of deciding on who should lead the fightback, is no way to start that fightback.

If they handle it right Labour can benefit from having a leadership contest, with plenty of constituency hustings, where members get to grill those looking to lead them back from the wilderness.

Let Kelly run. Let him explain his record as deputy leader and his central role in the party’s demise and – most importantly – allow him the opportunity to show if there is something… anything… more to him than political ambition and hunger.

How much do we really know about Kelly, even after last Friday’s Late Late Show interview and his July 2015 Saturday Night with Miriam one?

No a lot, I suspect – well not anything substantive. There is more than a hint of the “rose without trace” about Kelly.

It is as if he arrived fully formed on the political scene back in 2007 when he became a Senator.

His progress to the Cabinet table was fast-tracked thereafter in two-yearly steps: in 2009 he was elected to the European Parliament; in 2011 he returned from Europe to become a T.D. (managing to jump two steps in one bound by becoming a Minister of State within a month of becoming a TD), leading finally to his becoming deputy leader and Minister for the Environment in 2014.

Though his supporters may point to his less than flattering media coverage as a counter argument, to the outside observer Kelly has had a charmed political career to date.

He has moved seamlessly up the political ranks and achieved senior ministerial office in the same time that it has taken others to manage to just make it on to the local Council (or not, in the case of yours truly).

Has that all been due to his drive and ambition alone?

Perhaps it has – and as other pundits have observed, drive energy and ambition are in desperately short supply in the Labour party right now.

But so too is humility and the capacity to recognise just how far out of touch the Labour Party became with its voters under Gilmore Burton and Kelly.

Are these traits readily associated with Kelly? That’s a matter the Labour party members will have to consider in the weeks ahead – if they are given the chance.

Derek Mooney is a communications and public affairs consultant. He previously served as a Ministerial Adviser to the Fianna Fáil led government 2004 – 2010. Follow Derek on Twitter: @dsmooney

Rollingnews

lumpsum:pension

Gulp.

Tenacious Ken Foxe writes:

A TOTAL of 66 former public servants has received lump sum payments worth in excess of €200,000 over the past five years.

That includes one individual who received a golden handshake worth an incredible €428,000 and another who was paid out €382,000 from state coffers.

In all, 142 people – including departmental secretaries general and other former public servants – received lump sums worth more than €160,000, at a total cost to the state of €28.8 million.

That means an average pay-out of just over €200,000 per person, with tax only paid on lump sums in excess of €200,000 under rules introduced on 1 January 2011.

How one public servant retired with a lump sum of €428,000 and an annual pension of more than €140,000 (Ken Foxe)

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Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Castlebar earlier today to lay the foundation stone for a new swimming pool

Again.

Independent.ie reports:

Mr Kenny was speaking in Castlebar where he insisted he would only step down as Taoiseach prior to the next election.

“I’ve always said that my intention would be to serve the full term but not to lead the party into the next general election.

The Taoiseach said he was recently stopped on the street by a man who thanked him “for volunteering to run our country.”

Mr Kenny said the man had expressed his astonishment that so many people who put their names forward to be elected to Dáil Eireann do not want to have anything to do with Government and do not want to have anything to do with making decisions.

“So that’s why the responsibility is on me as leader of the largest party to put together a Government that is now in situ with the assistance and agreement of other parties in Opposition and at Government level will try to implement in the very best way we can the Programme for Government that we have set out,” he added.

Right so.

Enda Kenny dashes party rivals’ leadership hopes: I won’t step down as Taoiseach until the next election (Irish Independent)

Previously: The Man With One Point

Pic (and video): Mayo Advertiser (Facebook)

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Darragh Ó Tuathail, of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, writes:

The UK Brexit Referendum will take place on June 23. The latest Economist Brexit poll puts those who wish to remain in the EU at 41% and those who wish to leave at 40%, which those undecided at 14%.

British people and Irish registered to vote in the UK living abroad (including in Ireland) must register by close of business today.

There are also over 500,000 Irish people eligible to vote in the UK, phone your family, friends, colleagues and make sure they register to vote by the final closing date of June 7.

UK-based Irish readers can register here.

Graphic: The Economist

Previously: Irish May Sway Brexit Vote (Bloomberg)

Broadsheet.ie