Sir, – Mary Carolan in her profile and interview with Sean Guerin (“Negative views of lawyers rely on ‘cliches and tropes’, says Bar council chairman”, Law, November 23rd), records that Mr Guerin, “At the request of government . . . prepared a report examining how the claims of Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe were handled. It led to the resignation of Alan Shatter as minister for justice. In 2019 the Supreme Court found some of the report’s conclusions were beyond the scope of the inquiry, leading to them being removed from the Dáil record. Guerin has consistently declined to comment on the matter.”
Unfortunately, this brief depiction of what occurred ignores its gravity.
Mr Guerin was appointed by government in February 2014 to conduct a scoping inquiry into whether allegations made by Sgt Maurice McCabe warranted examination by an independent commission of inquiry.
The allegations concerned were also promoted by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and various other TDs.
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Instead of simply making such determination, after 19 hours of interviews with Sgt McCabe, acting on the State’s behalf, he produced a report which criticised my ministerial conduct and wrongly concluded that I had failed to address and respond to the sergeant’s allegations.
His report substantially damaged both my reputation and credibility, resulted in Enda Kenny as taoiseach losing confidence in me, forced my resignation from government, contributed to my failing to be re-elected in 2016 and led to my having to fight a nine-year battle to establish the full truth and have it placed on the Dáil record.
In May 2016, I was totally vindicated by the Report of the O’Higgins Commission of Inquiry, my ministerial conduct praised and Sgt McCabe’s failure to respond to letters of mine acknowledged. In October 2016, the Court of Appeal ruled that Mr Guerin had denied me a fair or any hearing. On his appeal, the Supreme Court in February 2019 determined he had had no mandate to criticise anyone and that he had also failed to afford me a fair hearing. It took until 2020, for then-taoiseach Micheál Martin to inform the Dáil that as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision, criticism of me had been redacted from the Guerin Report but no mention was made of the O’Higgins Report nor did he apologise for his mistaken allegations.
In July 2023, in the Dáil then-taoiseach Leo Varadkar for the first time acknowledged my “vindication” by the O’Higgins Report and that I had not “been afforded fair procedures in the course of the (Guerin) inquiry”. He continued: “Certainly, in my view, Mr Shatter was not treated fairly by an organ of the State. I wish to acknowledge that in the chamber today”.
When an individual is found to have been wrongly treated by an “organ of the State” it is the practice of government to apologise on the State’s behalf. I know that Micheál Martin blocked such an apology accompanying Leo Varadkar’s Dáil statement.
Why he did so and why neither Sean Guerin nor Micheál Martin have had the decency to apologise for the enormous distress and damage caused to both me and my family resulting from their conduct remain a mystery.
In the midst of my engaging in the general election campaign, it is personally damaging that any impression result from the brief depiction of these events that any of Mr Guerin’s conclusions applicable to me retain any validity and that “some” were merely removed from the Dáil record.
The O’Higgins Report in 2016 categorically established that they had no validity of any nature, as did the Supreme Court in 2019. – Yours, etc,
ALAN SHATTER,
Dublin 16.