@Denonu: you’re correct. Flanagan is also a waffler and really should’nt be in the role he’s in either.

@andyearley: When was Flanagan in charge of tourism?

@Denonu: i wasn’t for Francis returning. But if she returned to Justice replacing Flanagan id have no issue. The stuff that man comes out with is laughable at times.

@Denonu: tourism, no i mean justice. I beg your pardon.
Anyway he got lots of criticism over justice and equality.
Very misandrist I thought.

@Denonu: your original comment was deleted.
That’s a bit harsh eh?!

@Conor Walsh: Well we’ve had a few Doctors as the Minister for Health, but that hasn’t changed the fact that HSE is beyond broken

@Conor Walsh: You could ask the same question of most of our governments ministers, what qualifications do they hold which makes them suitable to the job they hold. Clearly the previous Fianna Fail government were a bunch of chancers when it came to finance, justice and health.

@andyearley: Yeah I thought so!
Didn’t think it came across as personalised or abusive but there you go.

@The Risen: good point. she has not been cleared of her wrongdoing in the dail

@The Risen: Read the Charleton report: there was no such “attempt to destroy Maurice McCabes reputation at the O’Higgins commission”

@Denonu: “Maurice McCabe was not traduced before the O’Higgins
Commission.

Further, any challenge to him never went beyond putting issues to him, asking him if he could support the serious allegations of corruption which he had repeatedly made with facts.
That involved tabling a proposition that he had become mistrustful of authority in consequence of his colleagues having the deeply unpleasant duty of investigating an allegation of what was
claimed amounted to a sexual assault.”

@Denonu:

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/garda-commissioner-claimed-maurice-mccabe-was-motivated-by-malice-399303.html

“At the very early stages, the inquiry was told by senior counsel for Ms O’Sullivan that evidence would be produced to show that Sgt McCabe had told two other officers that he was making his complaints because of malice he harboured towards a senior officer.

The inquiry was informed that the two officers had taken notes at the meeting in question and prepared a report which was forwarded to a senior officer.

However, a few days after the submission, Sgt McCabe informed Mr O’Higgins he had a tape recording of the meeting in question.

The commission took possession of the recording and arranged for a transcript to be created.

Mr O’Higgins indicated that the transcript coincided precisely with Sgt McCabe’s version of events and was in conflict with the allegation that he had told the two officers he was motivated by malice.

Following that, no evidence to show malice was called from the two officers who were at the meeting.

However, the failed attempt to impugn Sgt McCabe’s character did not appear in the O’Higgins report.”

Please feel free to point out any inaccuracies in what I posted above….

@The Risen: thats pretty black and white. ta for posting.

@The Risen: That is a completely overblown version of events in the report from 2016.

I think that this is the relevant part from the Charleton report:
“The probability is that, for reasons of confusion between complaints to Superintendent Clancy and against Superintendent Clancy, counsel for the Garda Commissioner at the O’Higgins Commission asked Maurice McCabe in evidence about whether he had made complaints against
Superintendent Clancy with a view to the circulation of the ruling of the Director of Public Prosecutions to himself and the D family.
The tribunal has listened to the audio recording of this.
It takes all of 20 seconds.
Then the matter is dropped.”

@Denonu: the risen claims that there was an attempt to destroy his character. he then proved it by posting info on the matter. it was only a few years back. we all remember what happened.

@The Risen: I think that the definitive facts are contained in the Judge’s report, not two year-old newspaper reports that were based on incomplete evidence.

@Denonu: You don’t like detail. You like whitewash.

@Denonu: I ask again. Which part of the link I posted are you disputing happened?

@The Risen: You say that “the inquiry was told by senior counsel for Ms O’Sullivan that evidence would be produced to show that Sgt McCabe had told two other officers that he was making his complaints because of malice he harboured towards a senior officer.”

Charleton finds that there was no such effort to undermine McCabe, as per the segments of the report that I have quoted above. He directly contradicts the claims made in the Examiner article.

We don’t know what evidence Michael Clifford had to support his piece in the Examiner whereas Charleton details all of the evidence that he read and heard in coming to his conclusions.

@Denonu: Charleton, it should be added, bases his findings on transcripts and recordings of the O’Higgins Commission.
That is extremely strong evidence.

@Denonu: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/transcripts-show-o-sullivan-instructed-legal-team-to-attack-mccabe-s-integrity-1.2651823

Transcripts show O’Sullivan instructed legal team to attack McCabe’s integrity
‘My instructions are to challenge the integrity certainly of Sgt McCabe and his motivation’

@Denonu: i’ve yet to see the risen post something that he can’t stand over. you’re making yourself look really foolish at this point.

@The Risen: Again the idea that Noirin O’Sullivan directed this approach is flatly contradicted in the Charleton report. The letter that was central to this idea was never seen by Noirin O’Sullivan.
“There is not any evidence that Commissioner O’Sullivan ever knew about this issue or about the letter or that she had any input into drafting it or that she was aware of any error in its contents.
She was not.”

@Larkin About: The Risen is posting news articles based on hearsay, incomplete transcripts from the O’Higgins inquiry and isolated emails.

I am posting Judge Charleton’s findings which he based on looking at the full transcript of the O’Higgins commission and witness evidence.

Here’s another section from his report:
“28 November 2017: The Tánaiste and former Minister for Justice and Equality Frances Fitzgerald, facing a storm of allegations of failing to step in when Sergeant McCabe was accused of false sexual assault allegations before the O’Higgins Commission, resigns from her position as Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation.
There were no such accusations, even on the basis of the small snippets of transcript illegally passed to the media.”

@Denonu: wtf is wrong with you? Admit you’re wrong and just don’t like being wrong. It’s okay to be wrong sometimes but Dear Francis was wrong on many occasion so nobody wants her back.

@Tony Hutchinson: Except that Charleton clearly finds that she did nothing wrong. She didn’t recall reading an email which turned out, also according to Charleton, to be if little import. The drip-feed of emails fron the department at the time of the controversy damaged her even though she was not the line minister at the time, so was not responsible.

You had several opposition politicians at the time (incl. Howlin, Adams, McDonald & Callaghan) saying that she should have ignored her officials’ advice and intervened in Garda legal strategy. Charleton finds that such an intervention would have been wholly unethical, which is what Fitzgerald herself maintained at the time.

She did nothing wrong.

@eastsmer: who should we vote for

@Tony Lyons: You should get some councelling that would help wean you off FF/FG.

@Sean Conway: In favour of who though? There are no credible opposition parties unfortunately.

@voice of raisin: vote SF. Not because the will be any better, they may or may not be, but until we show FF/FG that their duopoly of power is no longer guaranteed NOTHING will ever change. Short term (possibly )pain for long term gain.

@voice of raisin: People who are upstanding in your community. FG/FF are prone to corruption

@eastsmer: yeah vote for SF and have an extreme right thug party running things. Pedo coverups, punishment beatings, rampant internal bullying. Sounds like a trip alright.

@Denonu: ANYONE except FF FG LAB – surely that is constructive enough ?

@Denonu: Sinn Fein

@the-baldie-lad:
For pedo coverups: see also FF & FG.
For punishment beatings: read a history book and see also FF & FG.
For rampant bullying: hep C & cervical cancer scandals and sexual abuse victims’ legal experiences (amongst others), see also FF & FG.

@the-baldie-lad: Institutionalized enslavement and abuse of women and kids for decades under ff-fg. Varadkar sacks naughten for corruption, meets o brien himself and does not sack harris who is min for health when 20 women died, proving again what they think of women, Allegations from ff-fg of bullying and misogynism from ff-fg women. Catherine noonan fg said it was unbearable and unacceptable to have to endure it when she complained about being bullied within fg.

@voice of raisin: To say nothing of FFG nationalizing private finance and bailing out their partners in greed to the tune of 64Billion and we’ll pretend not to notice the current level of national debt which can never be repaid and which will see the IMF revisit when interest rates rise.

@Denonu: Anybody but FF/FG/SF/Labour. New parties and independents only. Give zero preference to the old ones.

@The Risen: and he is useless to

@Dave Doyle: That’s a big claim.
What did she lie about?
Judge Charleton is pretty clear that she acted appropriately at all times.

@andyearley: Eoghan Murphy has been criticised based on the inarguable objective facts about the housing crisis.

The facts as determined by Judge Charleton suggest that Frances Fitzgerald was forced to resign over the Garda legal approach at the O’Higgins inquiry despite the fact that she behaved appropriately at all times.

Yet we still hear vague, subjective criticism that she was weak, not qualified, not up to the job etc.

@Denonu:
She’s 68 years of age. Out to pasture with her where she can enjoy gorging on her inflated ministerial pension and maxing out her free bus pass.
Richard Bruton is another lad past his sell by date. Clear out required.

@Denonu: He also tell us only two people were responsible for the whole McCabe debacle.
Whitewash is never as good as a good stripping back and a new coat of paint.

@Denonu: it is not misogyny to criticise a female minister who did a bad job in her portfolio. How many mess ups did she preside over???

@andyearley: Harris in Health is doing a bad job, Leo as Taoiseach is poor and self serving. An election is necessary. However, Fianna Fáil at all just as bad / worse or good depending on point of view, as for Labour they’ll sell you for scraps from Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Sinn Féin would send us back to the 1950′s…

@Dave Doyle: The “whole McCabe debacle” stretches back decades.
Judge Charleton in this report is only concerned with the recent smear campaign against McCabe which he finds, based on looking at all of the evidence available to him, was the doing of Callinan and Taylor alone.

Do you have any objective reason to suppose that he is wrong?

@Denonu: that is total BS on your part. To be honest you sound almost like a hired troll trying to sway an idea. There are plenty of male weak ministers/TDs, and they are regularly called such by the public, in the media and amongst ministers themselves – Leo, Paschal, Howlin, Micheál Martin etc etc. The public perception of Mary Lou MD on the other hand is condidered strong TD as is Catherine Murphy and Roisin Shorthall regardless of what one thinks of their parties. People don’t look at gender – it’s an insult to people’s intelligence to play that card

@Skybloo: I’m talking about ministers, not opposition TDs (who never have to be accountable for anything that they say or do).

Talking about Murphy at housing (where the numbers are stark) or Harris at health (what health minister has ever not had scandals, waiting lists, trolleys etc. under their watch?) is whataboutery.

I just can’t shake the feeling that Frances Fitzgerald, only the state’s third female minister for justice, is shipping a lot more vague, “she’s just not up to the job”-type criticism than if it was a man in her place.

@Corkonian In Dublin: I agree. My point was with denonu saying there is misogyny in the criticism of Fitzgerald.
Saying that a dail of independent td would get nowhere.
What’s your suggestion

@Denonu: completely disagree
If you at our sitting ministers you will find a lot of not up to the job. Shane ross for instance?? In fact I commented recently saying that exact thing on Shane ross.
Your argument hold no water for me Im afraid. You are of course intitiled to your opinion

@Denonu: Two. Logic and common sense.

@Denonu: I dislike her over the dozens of “lost” phones which could have proven some guilt on her part, doesn’t matter if she is a man, women or whatever. Id still say the same regardless of gender.

@andyearley: Direct rule from the EU. Joking aside… There needs to be a shake-up and a new political party founded on fairness, equality and committed to hiring professional advisors and not their wife / cousin/ best friend’s dog twice removed aunt’s niece.
I don’t have faith in the state of Irish Political Parties. That’s true. However, a solution is escaping me also, because events over the last 20 years that should’ve wiped out Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and Sinn Féin haven’t.

One can hope that things will change… But evidence suggests other wise. Just look at house prices again.

@Corkonian In Dublin: I hear ya. The powers that be have learned nothing from the past decade. I’d say they are going mad they can’t be seen having a tent at the races.
It’s very frustrating isn’t it

@andyearley: the criticism of Murphy must have been misandrist.