Politicians criticised by Morris Tribunal over Garda corruption handling

Jay D

The Morris Tribunal has criticised the manner in which two politicians, Fine Gael's Jim Higgins and Labour's Brendan Howlin, handled serious but unverified allegations against senior gardaí.

The finding is made in the second of the final two reports from the Morris Tribunal into alleged garda corruption in Co Donegal, which have been published by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern this afternoon.

The tribunal also found that the allegations that the former Assistant Commissioners Kevin Carty and Tony Hickey were complicit in procuring evidence by unlawful means, were false and utterly without foundation.

Mr Justice Frederick Morris identified Frank Mc Brearty Senior and a former Garda PJ Togher as the authors of the totally untrue allegations.

The tribunal found that these allegations were then given an authority to which they were never entitled by the manner in which they were presented to the politicians, who were both Dáil deputies.

The deputies then passed them on to the then Minister for Justice, who established the Morris Tribunal.

Mr Higgins has issued a statement saying he disagrees with the findings of the tribunal that he and Mr Howlin had in any way acted irresponsibly.

He says the information came from previously reliable sources and that both he and Mr Howlin decided the proper course of action was to bring the material to the attention of the Minister for Justice.

The tribunal also found there had been a continuing pattern of harassment of members of the McBrearty family by some gardaí following the death of Richie Barron in Raphoe on 14 October 1996.

It concluded that the Garda Síochána Complaints Board had neither the statutory powers nor the resources to deal effectively with events on the scale of those which emerged in Donegal.


http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1007/morris.html

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