Political World
Ombudsman controversy less about bugs and more about a big fly in the ointment
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
When the story broke on Sunday about the Garda Siochana Ombdusman Commission’s office being bugged, it had all the appearance of being something sensational.
The office is the one that deals with complaints about members of the Garda Siochana and which also deals if there is an incident involving Gardaí – say, when a guard discharges a shotgun or when a garda patrol car is involved in a serious collision.
The answer to the question first posed by the Roman poet Juvenal, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who guards the guards?) is the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission or GSOC.
This was very serious. Evidence had come to light that the offices may have been bugged, which also suggested the work and investigations of the office had been compromised. The GSOC had investigated the incident and had only concluded its inquiry in December, several months after being picked up.
If this was true, it suggested a conspiracy which might be as grave as the bugging scandal of the early 1980s, though perhaps not as extraordinary as the events surround the Arms Trial from a decade earlier than that.
The bugging scandal of the 1980s came about after the government of the day, led by Charles Haughey, suspected that somebody (one of its Ministers presumably) was leaking confidential information from Cabinet meetings to selected journalists.
In 1982, then-Minister for Justice Sean Doherty arranged through senior Gardaí to have the phones of two journalists, Bruce Arnold and Geraldine Kennedy intercepted (or tapped). The motives were purely political rather than having to do with the security of the State. Haughey and his cronies regarded Arnold and Kennedy as hostile.
When Michael Noonan of Fine Gael became Minister for Justice late that year, he revealed all the details of the tapping in early 1983. He disclosed that Doherty had authorised it and that normal procedures had not been followed. He also disclosed that another government minister had borrowed bugging equipment form the guards to secretly record a conversation with another minister Martin O’Donoghue.
Ray MacSharry justified the highly irregular practice by claiming that O’Donoghue had told him that money could be found to assist anyone who found themselves in financial difficulties (MacSharry’s business was reported to have been experiencing troubles at the time).
Predictably the upshot was a massive national story and another of the periodic crises that Fianna Fail underwent when Charles Haughey was leader. However, as before (and later) Haughey survived the challenge to his leadership and winning the contest by 40 votes to 33. That challenge saw the beginning of Des O’Malley’s exit from the party.
And it had an epilogue over eight years later when Doherty went onto RTE Nighthawks programme to claim that it was not a rogue operation as had been claimed but that Haughey was fully aware that the phones of the two journalists were tapped. Haughey, then Taoiseach, denied it categorically but faced renewed calls for his resignation (this time from Albert Reynolds and his supporters). He did not go immediately but it was clear that his time had come.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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