Cassandra Voices

Tag: Bernadette Gorman

  • Review: Father, Son and Brother Ghost

    Few writers can do grief and loss like John MacKenna. He is, without question, the John McGahern of the ‘Ancient East’. Where McGahern has put the villages and drumlins of Leitrim along the inland cusp of the ‘Wild Atlantic Way’ at the heart of his writing, the landscape of South Kildare, and its surroundings are integral to MacKenna’s works and that is no different in Father, Son and Brother Ghost where place is the sorrowful score to MacKenna’s libretto.

    Unravelling grief is the strange, poignant music of the heart: If ‘grief is the price we pay for love’ MacKenna paid that price. All MacKenna’s fiction revolves around Castledermot, The High and Low Terraces of Abbeylands where the MacKennas lived: The rivers Lerr and Barrow, Mullaghcreelan Woods, Kilkea, Athy, Carlow, the Sliabh Bloom mountains and the midland bogs looming beyond are accomplices in what becomes a landscape of bitter-sweet melancholy. This memoir, mimicking the prayerful intonation ‘Father, Son and Holy Ghost’ is a hymn to MacKenna’s older brother, Jarlath whose untimely death at 62 in 2005 left the writer so bereft that he has been writing and rewriting this memoir for seventeen years between various other pursuits, not least a plunge into psychotherapy as he told a packed audience at its launch recently in the library in Athy.

    Jarlath spent the bulk of his working life as a doctor in North Carolina. In this moving memoir, landscape and place become sites of consecration to a lost brother, evoked through fragments of joyful memories, where often, more harrowing family anecdotes and memories interpose – his mother’s tears when the family were leaving the Low Terrace for a larger house on the High Terrace because she was leaving behind three still born babies buried there at the bottom of the garden.

    The sometimes distraught attempt to recover this lost fraternal connection reaches back into his parents’ own history, and the increasing friction and disappointment between them, caused, it appears, by Jack MacKenna’s increasing dependence on alcohol. But if Jack MacKenna was an alcoholic, he was a highly functioning one. John, as the youngest child of three, experienced these tensions more intensely, as he was like an only child because his brother and sister were away at boarding school. They were all, to different degrees ‘survivors of their own small carnage’ but he ‘didn’t know it at the time’. Set apart from their neighbours by being the school mistress’s children, the yearning for belonging abides.

    Ten years younger than Jarlath, MacKenna is first separated from him when his adored older brother is sent to boarding school in Limerick while the younger brother is still an infant. In the escalating tensions of the home, Jarlath became John’s rock and anchor and his sense of abandonment in the older brother’s many absences is a source of anguish.

    It seems the younger brother only realised when Jarlath died that he had never overcome these earlier losses due to their many separations. The severances are amplified, not just by the large age gap, but by the fact that Jarlath spent his summers working in England during his college years when he first studied for an arts degree followed by a H. Dip in Education and then went on to study medicine.

    During these periods, Jarlath’s trips to Castledermot were brief but they are jealously recovered here. In choosing to pursue his medical career in America, the miles of the Atlantic Ocean eventually stretched between them, keeping the brothers geographically apart as adult men.

    Unsurprisingly, MacKenna conveys a sense of betrayal by all these ‘sunderings’ culminating in his brother’s death from motor neuron disease a few days after he visits him. They are only spared one last night together as Jarlath deteriorated unexpectedly. All this pours forth in torrents of  ‘unending loss’.  Loss is ‘the tiny, pitched hole in the sky at night or the sun’s hesitation about rising at dawn’. It is ‘a grief that has been given two decades to condense but it remains’.

    With incredible skill this ceaseless grief, punctuated by cherished memories is movingly retold – snatched scenes during school and Christmas holidays, pranks played, photos of the three MacKenna children on swings, at picnics, on car bonnets – photos, not provided in the book but described in the minutest detail. In this, intense nurturing of memory, MacKenna manages, not just to keep his absent brother present but to evoke both brother and disappointed father with immense love.

    MacKenna’s despair was so all-consuming that he lost his second marriage amid the wilderness of the fallout from his brother’s death and for this, he is not easy on himself. Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkle, Elvis, Mozart and even prayers become accessories in recovered memories – every child of the 60s will identify with them and the same goes for the rosaries and the stations of the cross. The smell of polish, beeswax and lavender evoking back-to-school nostalgia are experiences all those of MacKenna’s generation will easily identify with and they are all tinged with a hint of the sanctified.

    Equally, we all knew a Lal McKenna – his single aunt whom, not unlike the heroine of Joyce’s ‘Eveline’, sacrificed her own prospects of love and marriage to care, first for her younger siblings and after that, for her sister’s children in Athy where she lived-in with the family, and also served in the shop. We all know too of the shoe-box coffins where dead and premature babies, excluded from ‘consecrated ground’ for not being baptised were, instead buried in old, abandoned graveyards or other local hallowed spots.

    Jarlath’s kindness to the brother, ten years his junior are emotionally recalled as numerous amputations – the ‘tearing apart of what was their brotherhood.’ An image of their father, Jack leaning on a spade at the opening throws a shadow over the pages – a shadow ‘that reached back into the past eight decades’.

    The narrative is not chronological but rather moves joltingly from different decades and places – itself evoking loss and dislocation. We are plunged into Jack’s own displacement when, after his mother died soon after he was born, he and his siblings were moved to his grandmother’s house in Celbridge. When his father remarried, Jack McKenna and his siblings were moved back to Bluebell Cottage in Athy where his father, a train driver, was based. Jack McKenna followed his own father into work on the railways and eventually becoming a signalman and foreman in Athy. ‘We are a railway family’ MacKenna informs the reader and his father was an exemplary worker. MacKenna’s earliest dreams was to be a railway worker too.

    This beautifully crafted memoir on a grief that brings the writer to the edge of self-annihilation is full of hope too. We are ‘not just the people our parents make us but what we make of ourselves’ and we can ‘all if we are lucky, venture down the road of understanding and mercy’.  Like his masterful debut novel The Last Fine Summer (1997) this memoir marks MacKenna out as a dazzling virtuoso of the poetics of love and loss.

    Father, Son and Brother Ghost is published by The Harvest Press www.theharvestpress.ie

  • Judge the Strength of a Democracy by its Treatment of Whistleblowers

    In light of recent developments, not least, the announcement of Michael McGrath as the next EU Commissioner, it is timely to look again at the infernal plight of workers of conscience – those noble people who blow the whistle on wrongdoing, and who strive to keep a corroded system from descending further into the abyss.

    Until 2022, Michael McGrath was Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform (referred to henceforth as DPER). Under his Ministry, new EU protected disclosures legislation of 2014 was advancing, and also EU Directive number 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of Europe of 23 October 2019 was set to be transposed into Irish law.

    The provisions of this Directive give significant further protection to persons who expose breaches in EU law as provided for in the Irish Protected Disclosure Amendment Act 2014. The aforementioned EU Directive was only finally transposed into Irish law in January 2023 and the new Act became known as The Protected Disclosure Amendment Act 2022.

    This provision was, however, effectively sabotaged long before it was transposed, and Minister Michael McGrath was central to that. The entire Protected Disclosure Act is under the remit of DPER.

    Cynical Collusion

    The now sinister OPLA – Office of the Parliamentary Legal Advisor was exposed on these pages before in November 2022 and again in March 2023. Its rapid expansion appears to have been in anticipation of the significant effectiveness of this EU Resolution on Protected Disclosures to stem corruption and protect whistleblowers. Two things happened to neutralise and sabotage this EU provision before it was transposed:

    • The vast expansion of OPLA involved OPLA being placed, unconstitutionally, on the statute books in December 2018, just as the Dail was rising for its Christmas recess. It occurred with no committee stages, or debate. This was in defiance of the Dunning Capacity Report, into OPLA which was not sent back to the sub-committee on Dail reform for consideration in December 2016 by the Dail Clerk who received it from Dunning. Thus, Dunning’s report was effectively suppressed. The integration of the OPLA into the Houses of the Oireachtas as rank-and-file civil servants, under the Dail clerk (a civil service appointee) in the Executive Arm of Government, is, as pointed out, a violation of the constitutional Separation of Powers. The discovery that OPLA was secretly involved in the investigation of Protected Disclosures in defiance of the provisions of the Act since 2013, and that it was all set to escalate as per Dunning, exposes a sleight-of-hand to virtually cut the legs out from under whistleblowers, striking a lethal blow at an integral part of democracy. 
    • The unlawful appointment of the Ombudsman by the civil service body – the PAS (Public Appointment Service) – is a violation of the Ombudsman’s Act 1980, and subsequent amending acts. The Ombudsman Act specifically disallows the Ombudsman from being appointed by the civil service. The Ombudsman was also appointed as Commissioner for Protected Disclosures, another canny moved within DPER while Michael McGrath was Minister. The Ombudsman knew full well that the OPLA – since 2018 a civil service body – was already involved in the investigation of Protected Disclosures since 2013, and that this was considered the main area of “growth and challenge for OPLA.”

    I have been in email contact with the CEO of the PAS about this unlawful appointment of the Ombudsman. I accused her of stepping outside of her remit in the appointment of the Ombudsman and pointed out that the Ombudsman’s Act 1980 specifically excluded it as a civil service appointment. To this she replied that it was done by PAS as “sanctioned” by the then Minister, Michael McGrath.

    He has no power to unilaterally alter legislation. The competition for the Ombudsman’s job was held by the PAS in August 2021, when the Dail was in recess and during the holiday season. The only Irish applicant was Ger Deering. On the appointment board was David Moloney, SG in DPER who was central to the entire legislation, as it was progressing at Committee stages in the new Protected Disclosures Act. David Moloney merely continued what Robert Watt, whom he replaced, had commenced.

    Both David Moloney and the Ombudsman appeared before the Finance Committee, which was responsible for the deliberations into the Protected Disclosures legislation, and which met several times in 2021 and 2022 to discuss the enhanced the Protected Disclosure Bill 2014, and the EU Directive about to be transposed.

    David Moloney effectively misled the Finance Committee in failing to inform the Chair and members that the PAS, with the apparent collusion of Minister Michael McGrath, after unlawfully taking over the appointment of the Ombudsman, whom it was also decided would become the new Commissioner for Protected Disclosures.

    Ger Deering’s appointment is a Constitutional one, and it thereby had to be ratified by the Dail before he went to the Aras to get his seal of office from the President. Mr Deering appeared before the Finnance Committee and made a speech on his appointment in December 2021 for the purpose of his appointment being ratified by the Oireachtas.

    I contend that Deering also misled the Committee, whose members and Chairman seemed to have been unaware that the Ombudsman should not have been appointed by the civil service body – the PAS – by law. Deering knew that he would be using the unconstitutional OPLA as new Commissioner for investigating Protected Disclosures, but he never revealed that at the Finance Committee despite the fact that John McGuinness, the Committee’s chairman, discussed the plight of whistleblowers with him fairly extensively and name checked a number of better known ones.

    McGuinness and his committee approved Deering’s appointment on behalf of the Oireachtas and he duly went to the Aras to receive his seal of office from the President.

    Whistleblowers – The Walking Wounded

    The dual strategies of the newly expanded OPLA – an unconstitutional entity since 2018 – and the sabotage implicit in the appointment of the Ombudsman utterly neutralised the provision of the EU Directive on Protected Disclosures, even before the full transposal of the EU Directive in January 2023.

    It was all done by DPER under Michael McGrath as Minister. The senior civil service have dealt a mortal blow to democracy, with full ministerial collusion and, above all, have commenced the ongoing campaign against whistleblowers – the walking wounded in a deeply corrupt system.

    In 2022, at a meeting of the Finance Committee, which McGrath attended with his senior civil servants, including David Moloney, and where a number of whistleblowers were also present, the civil servants backed by McGrath managed to get the provision of the EU Directive on PDs known as ‘The Presumption of Causation’ excluded from the EU Directive as transposed.

    This had provided for the presumption of victimization of a whistleblower, who reports wrongdoing without the whistleblower having to prove victimization is as a result of whistleblowing. This, of itself, was a significant blow to the effectiveness of the EU Directive.

    Democracy Under Threat

    Democracy depends on five major planks:

    • A free, robust and independent press.
    • A free and independent judiciary.
    • A robust and independent police force.
    • Robust whistleblower legislation.
    • A functioning democratic parliament where issue of major public import can be raised under privilege.

    The combined forces of the OPLA and the unlawfully appointed Ombudsman has dealt a direct, mortal blow to at last three of the five planks listed above. OPLA is unlawfully involved in Protected Disclosures and in the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Labour Court – both courts are subordinate to the High Court and a significant number of whistleblowers prosecute their claims, or aspect of their claims, in the WRC/Labour Court.

    Above all, OPLA has dealt an absolute mortal blow to the Dail itself. Arguably it has paralysed our parliament: there are numerous examples of OPLA muscling in, in a very heavy handed way on Dail Committee, especially in cases brought under privilege by whistleblowers to the Committees.

    The Committee Chairpersons are gormlessly allowing this, and are being bullied by the Committee Clerks who, in turn, are taking their instructions from the Dail clerk, Peter Finnegan, himself the chief architect of the draconian new OPLA in December 2018.

    In a case I had with the CPPO Committee, the OPLA took over the case from its clerk designate. I pointed out to the head of OPLA that no Standing Order (SO) of the Oireachtas allowed for it and asked what allowed it. I received no reply from Melissa English, the Chief Parliamentary Legal Adviser, whom I have accused of unlawfully and unconstitutionally trespassing into the sacrosanct area of the Oireachtas and the Ceann Comhairle, in a violation of the Separation of Powers, and a blow to the prudent use of Dail privilege.

    Irish Prison Whistleblower Sean O’Brien. Image: Daniele Idini.

    Protected Disclosure Legislation Disabled

    As OPLA operates in secret in addition to its listed function in Dunning’s capacity report of December 2016 as listed below, it may well be involved with the Gardai, and indeed with media enquires as fielded by the more robust elements in the media. I know from personal experience that the Gardai co-operate with the Ombudsman, attempting to sideline one complaint of a criminal nature I made to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman cannot investigate suspected crimes.

    The table below from Dunning’s Capacity Report (Dec 2016) includes all the secret areas OPLA are involved in where they have no jurisdiction:

    OPLA, and indeed its boss, Peter Finnegan (Dail Clerk) have no remit in at least four areas of growth as listed above. OPLA’s remit is ostensibly confined to the tripartite functions of 1) Advices to the houses of the Oireachtas and its staff, 2) Defending the Houses of the Oireachtas in Court and 3) Help with drafting Private Members Bills (PMBs). Enhanced Protected Disclosures legislation and the whistleblowers who rely on it have been taken out with military precision.

    ‘A Whistleblower’s Motive’ by Matthew Butterly. Image: Daniele Idini.

    The Whistleblowing Industry

    I have raised the OPLA and the unlawful Ombudsman appointment with John McGuinness, Chairperson of the Oireachtas Finance Committee unsuccessfully. I have also made a complaint to the Relevant Section in the EU, responsible for the transposal of the EU Directive on Protected Disclosures into Irish law, backed by a number of other whistleblowers. The EU passed the buck back to the Irish courts. As if any whistleblower can afford to go to Court!

    Several whistleblowers (myself included) have appealed to mainstream media outlets to expose the OPLA in its unconstitutional reconfiguration since 2018 and its unlawful involvement in PDs. They have all refused to act.

    Transparency Ireland have become a quangoistic arm of state, which now fully funds the organisation. Dr Lauren Kierans, the Maynooth academic in the area of PDs who wrote the new Protected Disclosures Act for DPER has been informed that her act was sabotaged as outlined above. She passed the buck to Transparency Ireland and is now on maternity leave.

    The retaliation against and destruction of whistleblowers is all set to escalate as OPLA continues to expand. As Transparency Ireland expands too, and academic departments and units on whistleblowing mushroom in Maynooth and Galway Universities, whistleblowing has now become a lucrative industry, where everyone is well-remunerated bar the destroyed whistleblowers themselves – for whose welfare these organisations ostensibly exist.

    Whistleblower, Shane Corr (where OPLA also interfered) was suspended as a Principal Officer by Robert Watt in the Health Department. Watt was himself central to the creation and the funding of the OPLA since 2018 when he was SG in DPER until replaced by David Moloney in 2021. Corr was threatened by Watt with a criminal breach of the Official Secrets Act after OPLA deemed his submissions to the PAC were not covered by privilege.

    Whistleblower and very senior official, John Barrett, the Garda Head of HR according to a Village Magazine article some time ago, was subjected to tyrannous retaliation by Drew Harris for exposing the Templemore Garda slush funds scandal. He is awaiting a hearing in court. This is to name but two of an army of destroyed whistleblowers.

    In a deeply compromised, dysfunctional democracy, everyone will be rewarded bar whistleblowers. The Finance Committee is in a state of paralysis and the Minister who colluded all the way, Michael McGrath becomes an EU Commissioner in circumstances where he actively incapacitated the EU’s own Directive for the protection of whistleblowers.

    The irony of this cannot be overstated. What part the early announcement of his departure has to do with my rigorous challenged to the CEO of the PAS in recent days, Margaret McCabe, is anyone’s guess.

    After all, the vacancy for the EU Commissioner does not arise until October. Meanwhile, whistleblowers will continue to be condemned, vilified and relegated to the ranks of public pariah, while endless amounts of public money will be thrown at the industry and the army of persons who have colluded to destroy them. Foremost among these is OPLA and the Ombudsman. According to the Law Society Gazette in July 2018 OPLA’s Melissa English believes she’s worth it. Our democracy meanwhile, which can always be measured by the treatment of whistleblowers, was never more undermined.

  • OPLA Erodes Irish Democracy

    The Office on the Parliamentary Legal Advisor (OPLA) was placed on a statutory footing in 2018, by amendment to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Act 2003, without so much as a press release, let alone media coverage of an important development. This entity is delivering a hammer blow to Irish democracy.

    In the midst of the pandemic in 2021, Marc McSharry TD – an ardent supporter of whistleblowers – tabled a number of parliamentary questions (PQs) on my behalf. These mostly concerned the apparent widespread use of bogus medical doctors across state agencies.

    All of these questions were shot down, however, under Standing Order (SO) 45, which inaccurately claimed they weren’t questions of ‘fact of policy’.

    The final PQ was euphemistically ‘amended’, but was in reality an entirely new PQ, drafted so as effectively to give legislative approval to the practice of using bogus doctors, fraudently claiming to hold medical council registrations.

    These doctors are used, in particular, in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) and are paid a sum for each client they cut off disability payments. All doctors reviewing cases in the DEASP are obliged to be registered with the medical council.

    Signing Off

    The PQs raised on my behalf were signed off on by Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Catherine Connolly whom I implored not to put the replies on the Dáil record, as I explained it would be a violation of Standing Order 45 to alter a PQ without consent.

    However, Catherine Connolly doubled down, claiming PQs can be ‘amended’ under SO 45.

    Yet the provision of SO 45 states that PQs can only be amended in ‘consultation’ with the Deputy raising them, which did not occur.

    Despite being furnished with a copy of standing order 45, Catherine Connolly bizarrely wrote to me and Deputy McSharry that the replies were going on the Dáil record, and she was ‘not re-visiting’ the matter. This effectively gave Dáil blessing to serious malpractice.

    I was entitled to an appeal before the Committee for Parliamentary Oversight and Privileges (CPPO) but, before I could make a submission, I received an unsolicited letter from the Cheann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl erroneously claiming I had no right to an appeal to the CPPO.

    I then engaged the service of a solicitor (at my expense), and only after two solicitors’ letters was my right to a CPPO hearing established with the Cheann Comhairle, who wrote to say he had given my submission to the clerk of the CPPO.

    Matters did not end there. After this I encountered the sinister entity that is OPLA.

    Seán Ó Fearghaíl TD

    Case Closed

    I had requested that another committee member chair the CPPO for this case, as the usual chair Seán Ó Fearghaíl, and his deputy, Catherine Connolly, had questions to answer. My request was refused, however, by the Office on the Parliamentary Legal Advisor (OPLA).

    Then I sought to appear as a witness. This too was denied. Finally, I received a brief email from the Committee clerk, a middle-ranking civil servant, saying the case had been heard on April 6, 2022, and had found against me, and that the Cheann Comhairle had chaired it.

    I received no reply from the Committee clerk to further enquiries such as whether the requisite quorum of eight committee members were in attendance. I did, however, receive a high-handed reply from a ‘legal counsel’ in OPLA, conveying what I now know to be an inaccurate account of the hearing.

    Having checked with members of the Committee, it appears my case was never heard and, my submission was not circulated to the Committee members. This is a breach of Standing Order 118.

    OPLA circulated a number of further authoritarian letters defending the Cean Comhairle’s right to chair the meeting, while maintaining that there had been a hearing by the CPPO in the first place.

    On June 10, 2022, the deputy head of OPLA, Ramona Quinn wrote a letter to me citing ‘laws and conventions going back to 1923.’

    In response, I challenged Ms Quinn and OPLA as to what Dáil Standing Order allowed the unit to intrude on – and indeed unconstitutionally usurp – the work of any Committee of elected representatives of Dáil Eireann? To this I received no reply.

    I did, however, receive a number of further, intimidating, letter from OPLA, thereafter unsigned.

    In response, I put them on notice to the effect that this constituted harassment and pointed out that they were trespassing into the constitutionally sacrosanct domain of the Ceann Comhairle, and the Oireachtas. I asked the head of OPLA for the Dáil Standing Order allowing for it. To this I again received no reply.

    OPLA

    Further enquires reveal that the OPLA quango evolved from containing just one legal advisor, Melissa English, in 2007, to twenty-four legal experts in 2018!

    English had been a sole independent legal advisor in the Houses of the Oireachtas but, according to a March 2019 article in Eolas magazine, ‘under her stewardship it is now a statutory office comprising a multi-disciplinary team of barristers, solicitors, legislation drafters and specialist researchers.’

    The article goes on to quote English saying, ‘the OPLA unit had to be structured and resourced over the last 12 years.’

    Eolas magazine reveals further that OPLA emerged from ‘a report of a retired civil servant Dunning in December 2016’, and it led to a Dáil sub-Committee headed by the Cheann Comhairle for the establishment and vast expansion of OPLA, including the provision for the head of OPLA to be appointed a deputy Secretary General in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

    The function of OPLA is supposed to be tripartite: to give legal advice to Oireachtas members; to help draft legislation in Private Members Bills; and to defend the Houses of the Oireachtas in court challenges.

    However, given English and her unit are part of the Oireachtas, and as she is a civil servant reporting directly to the civil servant and Top-Level Appointments Committee (TLAC) appointee, Dáil Clerk, Peter Finnegan, how can she defend herself and her unit in court, as it is now an integral part of the Oireachtas?

    Furthermore, English flagged the ‘colliding rights of parliamentarians to absolute privilege in respect of their speeches in the Dail and the, sometimes competing rights of outside persons whose personal constitutional rights can be adversely affected by this speech’ as part of the justification for her bloated unit.

    I maintain that English and her legal heavy gang have copper-fastened gross medical malpractice implicit to the use of unqualified medical practitioners by State departments and agencies.

    So much for the constitutional rights of citizens, English appears to have seen no problem giving parliamentary blessing to a seriously problematic practice.

    Furthermore, English appears to have seen nothing irregular about government Departments and Oireachtas civil servants distorting PQs, or the Cheann Comhairle apparently misleading me in correspondence.

    The Leas Cheann Comhairle Catherine Connolly who signed the PQ responses ought to be aware that OPLA has exceeded its remit, violated the Oireachtas and conveyed falsehoods about a phantom hearing at the CPPO in April this year. I argue that she is deepening her original violation of SO 45, and failing to correct the records of the Dáil arising from the distortion of the PQ. She is also failing to correct the erroneous assertions of OPLA.

    Four Courts Quay.

    Violation of Separation of Powers

    I wrote to Melissa English on October 15, 2022 regarding the intrusions of OPLA into the workings of a Dáil Committee.

    English defines herself as ‘being central to the defence on behalf of parliament of the cornerstone of the constitutional separation of powers’, but she seems unaware that OPLA violates the constitutional separation of powers. As a civil servant under the Dáil Clerk, English is obliged to respond in ten working days to queries from the public.

    Yet, to date, I have received no response from her to these questions I raised.

    1. What is your defence of the violation by OPLA of Dail SOs and the Constitutional Separations of Powers in taking over the CPPO committee from its clerk designate and its elected members?
    2. Sinead Fitzpatrick, legal counsel, conveyed un-retracted inaccuracies in two formal letters to me and my solicitor on 20 April 2022 to the effect that the case was heard by the CPPO on 6 April 2021. It was not heard and, the submission was not even circulated in further violation of SO 118.
    3. Why am I still being harassed by unsolicited and unsigned communications from OPLA whom I have requested to remain outside of my dealings with elected members of a Dáil Committee – a constitutional process in which OPLA has no role or jurisdiction?
    4. Are the Cean Comhairle and the Leas Cean Comhairle being consulted and informed about these communications, and do they approve of the ongoing communications I am receiving from OPLA at your direction?

    I have separately put these questions to the Cheann Comhairle and the Leas Cheann Comhairle, similarly without reply.

    Constitutional Crisis

    I notified Taoiseach Micheál Martin in late 2021 to the effect that there is a constitutional crisis in the Oireachtas because of the ongoing conduct of the Cheann Comhairle and Leas Cean Comhairle. I also informed him that OPLA and the Dáil Clerk are violating the constitutionally sacrosanct realms of the Cheann Comhairle and the Oireachtas.

    Micheál Martin responded that the Cheann Comhairle’s office was independent. It begs the question: who exactly will deal with the constitutional impasse that has emerged in this case?

    It appears that OPLA is ensuring that in certain circumstances a PQ cannot be asked on behalf of a citizen. Nor can a citizen access a Dáil Committee to redress the injustice of a wrongful PQ.

    How, one wonders, did the Oireachtas ever function before the recent creation of OPLA and its band of twenty-four legal heavy hitters?

    The answer seems obvious. OPLA is designed to muzzle the Oireachtas. That is perhaps why no press release attended its creation on a statutory footing and its wide expansion in 2018.

    It is an authoritarian quango which has mushroomed from one legal advisor to twenty-four in the space of twelve years. Masquerading as a helpful entity, its real purpose is to snuff out a crucial function of our parliamentary democracy.

    A Legal Monster

    So how did the legislation creating OPLA slip through parliament in 2018 and, how much does it cost the taxpayer? Having spoken to a number of TDs, none seem to recall the 2018 legislation creating OPLA in its current guise passing through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

    Given OPLA’s total staff, including clerical and twenty-four legal officers amount to thirty-six, we may assume it costs at least €5 million per annum.

    The spend was signed off on by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform under Robert Watt as Secretary General and Accounting Officer. Perhaps this explains Robert Watt apparent contempt for Dáil Committees.

    Democratic accountability compels a total dismantling of OPLA in its present guise. One does not need to be a constitutional lawyer to see that it is glaringly unconstitutional.

  • Varadkar off the Hook: Questions Remain

    In response to allegations made against then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar which appeared in Village Magazine, in March 2022 I submitted a formal statement to the Garda investigative team regarding the Official Secrets Act (hencefore OSA); in particular pertaining to the responsibilities of Martin Fraser, then the most senior civil servant in the country.

    I also pointed to an usually-timed departure from precedent in Fraser’s appointment as the next ambassador to London, which is in the gift of Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney as Minister for Foreign Affairs.

    Certain circumstantial evidence remains pertinent to any interrogation by the Oireachtas into what has occurred, namely:

    February 11, 2019: the NAGP union write a threatening letter to Fine Gael HQ warning it would be canvassing against them in upcoming local elections and the forthcoming general election.

    April 10, 2019: the confidential GP contract is couriered from the Taoiseach’s Department to then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Baldonnel airport without formal authorisation and with no conditions attached.

    April 25, 2019: an official in that Department of Health warns that ‘Unilateral publication of the Agreement, in the absence of confirmation from the IMO that it is satisfied with the final text, would represent a serious breach of trust.’

    We still do not know which civil servant authorised that initial leak.

    It beggars belief that in the seven months from the time that the revelations appeared in Village Magazine (October 2020), and the case being raised to a criminal investigation (April 2021), that the most senior civil servant in the country – with responsibilities deriving from the OSA including internal breaches – does not appear to have conducted an internal inquiry.

    Bear in mind that if a junior official leaks a confidential file it is usually career suicide, and potentially results in criminal charges.

    I therefore previously argued that it is reasonable to assume that no junior official leaked the document, and that authorisation came from Fraser himself.

    It is important to emphasise that Martin Fraser was one of three Civil Service Commissioners with certain legal powers vested in him that exceed even the Taoiseach of the day.

    The logic underpinning such formidable powers is that they are responsible for the preservation of the institutions, statute and assets of the State beyond the life of any government. Hence the concept of a ‘permanent’ government and its daunting power.

    With such power arrives commensurate responsibility. It became apparent in my dialogue with members of the Garda investigative team that Martin Fraser had not conducted an internal probe, and his role was never under investigation.

    On legal advice I withdrew my statement and was advised that the matter would return to the Oireachtas for clarification and investigation.

    The Duties of the Oireachtas

    Now that the DPP has ruled that Leo Varadkar has no case to answer the matter comes back to the Oireachtas, which ought to clarify the following points before Martin Fraser departs for London. He should be compelled to explain:

    • Why he failed to conduct an internal investigation into the leaked and confidential contract, either in the seven months before the Gardai gave it criminal status or since.
    • If Martin Fraser was indeed responsible for the release of the document, why he didn’t, as cabinet secretary, inform the cabinet. Further to this, it should be asked how and when the cabinet first learned that the contract had been leaked, and was this only through the Village Magazine article.
    • How it is that a Garda investigation spanning eighteen months seemingly never examined the role of Martin Fraser given the strong likelihood the document was released from his Department.

    This affair has set a very damaging precedent whereby the habitual violation of the OSA becomes a risk to the security of the State in the event of future leaks. The DPP decision that Leo Varadkar has no case to answer suggests that sensitive documents may now be casually disseminated.

    The Oireachtas needs to determine, once and for all, on whose authority the contract moved from the Department of Health to the Taoiseach’s Department.

    Mr Fraser should be directly questioned as to whether he authorised that step, using his higher powers as head of the civil service, and commissioner, to demand the release of the document from the then Secretary General of the Department of Health, Jim Breslin to his own Department of the Taoiseach. Mr Breslin would have been obliged to release the document to his superior in the civil service chain-of-command.

    Moreover, the DPP’s decision makes it imperative for the Oireachtas to clarify who is responsible for a breach of the OSA.

    Leo may be off the hook, but important issues surrounding the affair remain opaque. The fundamental matter to be addressed is who precisely within the civil service authorised the initial leak of the document to Leo Varadkar.

    It is quite simply bizarre that Martin Fraser – without previous diplomatic experience in the Department of Foreign Affairs – was appointed ambassador to our most sensitive and prestigious embassy at a time when a criminal probe into a leaked document remained unconcluded; in a matter over which he held overarching responsibility.

    Bernadette Gorman was a civil servant for twenty years and held statutory powers. She worked as an Inspector and a trainer of Inspectors.

    Feature Image: (c) Daniele Idini.

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  • Varadkar Leak: Broaden the Investigation

    The ongoing criminal investigation into an alleged breach by Tánaiste Leo Varadkar – while Taoiseach in 2019 – of corruption legislation and the Official Secrets Act (OSA) should be broadened to include members of the permanent Government; especially the Secretary General to the Department of the Taoiseach, Martin Fraser. Instead, he is set to be become Ireland’s next ambassador to the U.K., despite having no diplomatic experience.

    Serious charges of corruption were first levelled against Varadkar in Village Magazine in October, 2020, but this article primarily focuses on the importance of the OSA investigation pertaining to the responsibilities of top civil servants. The OSA requires the relevant civil servants to perform a formal authorisation process before the release of a confidential official document.

    The weight of responsibility for upholding the State, its assets, institutions, and statutes in perpetuity falls to civil servant members of the permanent government. The formidable powers vested in senior civil servants are commensurate with their responsibilities.

    Chain of Movement

    We know that a confidential draft G.P. contract was acquired by Leo Varadkar through his own Department of the Taoiseach, which received it from the Department of Health, and that, bizarrely, this was couriered from the Taoiseach’s Department to Baldonnel Aerodrome to the then Taoiseach.

    It is safe to assume that that this unorthodox chain of movement involved the State’s most senior civil servant, Martin Fraser, and perhaps then Secretary General of the Department of Health Jim Breslin.

    Notably, an official in the Department of Health warned that ‘Unilateral publication of the Agreement, in the absence of confirmation from the IMO that it is satisfied with the final text, would represent a serious breach of trust.’ The leaking by Varadkar of the document to his friend Dr Maitiu O Tuathail, the President of the rival National Association of General Practitioner (NAGP) surely “represented a serious breach of trust.”

    Moreover, according to the FOI received by Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty even ‘the line Minister responsible for the negotiations [then Minister for Health Simon Harris] was unable to obtain the contract from his officials.’

    If the draft contract had been acquired by Leo Varadkar from a more junior official it would not be the subject of a criminal probe, as there would have surely first been an internal inquiry under the Secretary to the Government, Martin Fraser.

    We can therefore take it for granted that the release of the document to Leo Varadkar was authorised by the State’s most senior civil servant: Martin Fraser. If so, it begs the question why Fraser would have permitted this to happen.

    Legal Obligations

    What then were Martin Fraser’s legal and constitutional obligations?

    First, as the State’s most senior civil servant he should have satisfied himself and informed the Cabinett under 2018 anti-corruption legislation and the OSA, that Varadkar was not acquiring a highly sensitive document for corrupt and unlawful purposes. An apparent failure by Fraser– who originally joined the Department of the Taoiseach as finance officer in 1999 under Bertie Ahern – to interrogate why Varadkar sought a hard copy to be delivered to him at Baldonnel displayed an unacceptably permissive approach, at the very least.

    Secondly, Fraser had an obligation as Cabinet Secretary to inform the Cabinet that Varadkar had acquired the confidential G.P. contract under the OSA. Any decision to release such a sensitive document should have followed normal Cabinet procedures, or at least the advice of the Attorney General should have been sought.

    That the roles of Fraser, and, to a lesser extent, Breslin do not form part of the Garda investigation sets a dangerous precedent, with the potential to destabilise the legislative basis of the State itself. The powers of the civil service operate in perpetuity via a constellation of interacting legislation, of which the Ministers and Secretaries Act, the OSA and civil servants’ contracts are integral parts.

    Many now consider the leaking of the G.P. contract to have been relatively harmless, and question whether Leo Varadkar had anything to gain from it. But that the Gardai have given it the status of a criminal investigation demonstrates the gravity of the matter. Any breach of the OSA casts doubt over the integrity of senior officials – especially Martin Fraser – and by extension state institutions.

    These processes are not now being interrogated in what appears an alarmingly narrowly focused investigation.

    Despite repeated attempts to bring this matter to the attention of senior members of the Gardaí, I have received no response to date.

    Ambassador Role

    If he was under investigation, Fraser would surely not be departing for the role of Ambassador to the U.K..

    That he was proposed in July 2021 for the London posting, while the investigation was underway – and where it had been raised to criminal status encompassing the OSA since April 2021 – gives rise to serious concern.

    That appointment process calls into question the judgement of the current Taoiseach, Micheál Martin the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney. Formal democratic decision making is being sidestepped, amidst the horse-trading of a tripartite coalition that devolves to the permanent, unelected government. The botched secondment of Tony Holohan – in which Martin Fraser is also implicated – confirms this impression.

    As in Holohan’s case, with Fraser’s appointment to London, executive decisions appear to have been made in violation of normal procedures. Indeed, Fraser has no prior experience as a diplomat with the Department of Foreign Affairs.

    But the plum London job still awaits a figure described by former cabinet minister Shane Ross as ‘an immensely powerful civil servant.’

    Zappone Appointment

    From what we know of what is in the public domain, Fraser was among a suite of names proposed for various overseas positions, which were brought to the Cabinet for consideration on July 27, 2021, just as the controversial proposal to appoint Katherine Zappone as UN special envoy was unravelling.

    The Irish Times carried a story that afternoon stating that Fraser had been “proposed” that day for the London Embassy job, but it remains unclear when the Cabinet actually signed off on this appointment.

    The Irish public now have a right to know whether Fraser knew the purpose for which Varadkar was obtaining the sensitive contract in an unorthodox fashion; and if not, why didn’t he attempt to ascertain this.

    The role of Martin Fraser – along with the then Secretary General of the Department of Health Jim Breslin who should have received any such instructions in writing – should form part of this criminal investigation.