Fresh penalty points allegations to shape future of Garda

It is no overstatement to say the fresh penalty points controversy will decide the career of interim Garda Commissioner Noirin O’Sullivan and in turn significantly influence the path of the Garda as a force for the next five years or more.

O'Sullivan was placed into post at the head of the 13,000 force when former commissioner Martin Callinan retired with immediate effect back in March.

Currently the job is being advertised at home and away and international head hunters are being put in place to find the “right” candidates to apply for the position. But O’Sullivan is as much part of that race as any other candidate. And she desperately needs her tenure as interim commissioner to go smoothly so she can present her term as the first days of a new era in policing when she faces the interview panel.

Enter stage, Sgt Maurice McCabe. He is the Garda whistleblower who first raised the allegations two years ago that gardai up and down the country were abusing their discretion and cancelling penalty points for family and friends in cases where no legitimate reasons existed for such cancellations.

Two weeks ago he presented a new dossier to O'Sullivan's office containing significant allegations. In a nutshell, he is claiming new procedures introduced in mid June intended to tighten up the cancellation of penalty points have not had the desired effect. He claims some gardai are presenting bogus reasons when applying on behalf of motorists to cancel penalty points to a new office in Thurles, Co Tipperary.

Under the changes to the system introduced in June, there are just three staff in that office who have been assigned the power to decide whether points should be cancelled or not.

McCabe is also claiming that motorists who had points cancelled three, four and five times under the old procedures without legitimate reasons – are continuing to benefit from points being cancelled since the new office was introduced in June. And he also alleges the rate at which cancellations are happening has only barely slowed down despite the June changes and despite all the controversy over the issue for nearly two years now.

Those June changes were brought in when O’Sullivan was in control of the Garda. They are her changes. Any shortcomings in the new system cannot be blamed on Callinan. Fairly or unfairly, they will be seen as her shortcomings if there are shortcomings. And this will likely have ramifications for her pitch to become the new, permanent, garda commissioner.

If she doesn’t get the job, it may go to someone outside the force, possibly to somebody currently based outside the State. That would be a huge change for the Garda.

Anyone who has watched closely the car crash of a relationship between the Garda and its oversight agency the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission will understand the gulf that could emerge between any civilian, and a foreign one at that, being hired to become the new commissioner.

At the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, yesterday O'Sullivan, along with Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, faced the media at an event intended to mark the entry of the first class of Garda recruits to enter the college for five years.

The media scrum was dominated by the fresh allegations on penalty points. It was perhaps the most robust, maybe aggressive, barrage of questioning of a garda commissioner this reporter has seen in 10 years. O’Sullivan took it in her stride; under extreme pressure but batting away difficult questions well and peppering her answers with all of the key words she knows she must repeatedly use if she is to sell herself as the future of new policing rather than a seamless transition of the old regime.

This is an articulate woman who does not panic. Or it she does, she hides it well. Her future and that of the leadership of the force looks likely to rest on one very simply question. Has the new system she introduced been exposed as a failure and allowed the culture of cancelling penalty points for no legitimate reason continue after the changes she introduced in June?

The answer may well decide if she, or a foreign civilian or police officer, will be the next garda commissioner.