Garda whistle-blower admonished by Justice Minister

A Garda whistleblower who made allegations of corruption concerning penalty point cancellations was last year contacted by an official for the Minister for Justice voicing concern about the handling of confidential information.

The assistant secretary general of the Department of Justice wrote to the whistleblower on Alan Shatter’s behalf to outline his “serious concern” that the names of people subject to allegations in relation to the cancellation of points had been made public.

The letter was written before Mr Shatter made public, on a Prime Time debate in May, information about a "ticking-off" independent TD Mick Wallace had received from gardaí for using his mobile phone while driving.

A Garda report, commissioned last October on foot of the allegations that thousands of penalty points had been wrongly quashed, found no evidence of corruption. However the report, published in May, did recommend that a superintendent and two inspectors be disciplined.

Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar said some elements of the report, by assistant commissioner John O'Mahoney, appeared "unusual" to a reasonable person. He has backed calls from the Road Safety Authority for a further investigation by the Garda Ombudsman Commission.

Letters released
A letter from assistant secretary general Michael Flahive on behalf of Mr Shatter last December to one of the whistleblowers has been released by the Department of Transport under the Freedom of Information Act.

The letter states: “It is a matter of serious concern that the names or identities of some private citizens have been cited in media reports, particularly in circumstances where it is premature, to say the least, to assume that there has been any wrongdoing . . .”

The letter says that while allegations must be investigated this had to be done with due regard to the rights of all concerned.

“Members of the public are entitled to expect that, in their dealings with the Garda Síochána, their privacy, and in particular their rights under data protection legislation, will be respected.”