Whistleblower: Maurice McCabe

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121460383#Comment_121460383

I'm not sure I'd fully agree.

My guess is that we are more corrupt than other developed countries but that the type of corruption we have here isn't picked up by this scale.

You won't give a direct cash bribe to a Policeman here, but I think there's quite a lot of more complex, subtle corruption that just isn't as obvious.

As an example, I've only just come to learn of a news story from about 10 years ago where Michael Martin had monies received from a property developer in his wife's bank account. I think to any reasonable person there's something rotten about that, but here it's just brushed away and even normalised.

Gregor Samsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121461798#Comment_121461798

Look, you can't just ignore the evidence and decide that your "guess" is a better way of estimating where we rank on a corruption index.

Far from it being "brushed away", that payment - suspicious as it indeed was - was actually uncovered in the Mahon Tribunal. The article may have been about 10 years ago, but the payment was in 1991. A lot has changed in the country since then - much of it thanks to whistleblowers like Maurice McCabe and Tom Gilmartin.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121460888#Comment_121460888

IMO there isn't "massive" corruption and criminality in public bodies but rather low level corruption and fraud (e.g. time card) combined with incompetence, fecklessness, laziness, irresponsibility, sloppiness, apathy, and a don't rock the boat/keep the head down culture. I say that as both a former public servant with a lot of experience of dealing with various public organisations and as a current user of public services.

In the case of McCabe, the power that Gardai have probably tends to attract a certain number of undesirables into the career - so if retribution for rocking the boat was going to happen to a whistleblower in any organisation, it was going to be in AGS.

As for the HSE, I am currently dealing with it and its private sector contractors over a homecare package for an elderly relative. The incompetence and stupidity that I have encountered from care staff, managers and administrations is beyond belief. The administrators in the HSE cannot even issue a simple letter in a timely manner and when they do so following my complaints, it is littered with errors and omissions. I've received veiled threats from HSE and contractor employees that if I complain about the quality of service, it may be withdrawn completely. I've received various insinuations that bruising that has appeared on my relative after rough handling (that I have secretly filmed) by homecare staff is actually being caused by me. So while I'm not in a McCabe situation, were this to escalate further, I might be.

We hear about the big HSE court cases where people have been killed or had their lives ruined due to negligence. What we don't hear much about is the 500+ deaths and tens of thousands of injuries that occur each year due to "adverse incidents" in HSE facilities - and these figures don't even include incidents in the voluntary hospitals that our health service is so dependent on. It also doesn't include the massive can of worms that is the homecare sector.

mariaalice

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462150#Comment_121462150

Your experiences are your experiences, I met an elderly neighbor of my sisters who has nothing but praise for the HSE service that got her home from the hospital and for the care workers who came into her home to help her, in contrast to your experience.

It is almost impossible that you have never encountered good care workers or anyone competent let alone the kindness that elderly people often receive from the care staff they encounter.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121461713#Comment_121461713

I assumed it would be clear from my post that I meant his honourable action in reporting his colleagues’ failures was a mistake in the sense that it brought all sorts of pain and suffering to him and his family.

It is a national tragedy that honest whistleblowers like Sgt. McCabe were vilified and that chancers like Keith Harrison tried to climb on a bandwagon.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121461354#Comment_121461354

I don’t say that all negligence falls to the level of incompetence but it does mean that the medical staff failed to provide the proper standard of care.

Do you doubt that many cases in this cascade of settlements involved even graver failures of medical care? Yet we see consequences so rarely.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462363#Comment_121462363

So my experiences are my experiences and your experiences are based on meeting "a neighbour of your sister". OK.

And some of the reasons that people praise homecare staff include

a) they don't know that they are receiving poor service/being abused as they don't know any better

b) the alternative (staying in a shambolic acute hospital or shambolic nursing home) is worse.

c) they are afraid to say anything negative to anyone because of the veiled threats that services will be withdrawn if they do. To bring this back on topic, fear of reprisals is also why there aren't more Maurice McCabes blowing whistles.

And I never said that I have never encountered good care workers or anyone competent - you'd need to read more carefully. If I was to put a figure on it I'd say that 10-15% of care workers that I have encountered are competent. Maybe your sister's neighbour has been lucky enough to encounter one of them.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462363#Comment_121462363

I think Sgt. McCabe would agree with this or, at least, he would have when he reported his colleagues’ failures.

He then discovered the hard way that the system cannot deal with lazy, feckless, incompetent behaviour. His superiors resented his efforts to address this behaviour and things spiralled out of control, taking out two (!) Ministers for Justice, one (maybe two?) Garda Commissioner and his Press Officer. Oh, and the Taoiseach.

All that could have been avoided if a Garda Superintendent had backed Sgt. McCabe in his efforts to improve policing in Cavan/Monaghan.

Who gets to vote confidence in all of those Gardai ( 98% of them) who believed they had a right to vote no confidence in the Commissioner?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462150#Comment_121462150

If you're secretly filming people coming into your/her home, you're breaching their data protection rights and jeopardising any complaints made using that information.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121461798#Comment_121461798

I agree. The sort of corruption picked up by the RTE Investigates team is very subtle but widespread. Find me a county councillor who hasn't faked expenses for example. Look at the TD Dara Murphy (FG) and what he got away with.

The government have blocked all reform in this area. The current reform bill has been on pause for 7 years.

McCabe is a national hero but I don't know how her survived the smear campaign.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462743#Comment_121462743

I'm pretty sure there are situations where secret filming is deemed within the law, and may in fact aid an investigation, but I would advise the poster to seek help and not 'go solo'.

I would advise the poster to make sure they have exhausted all the alternatives, and then to contact a reputable investigative journalist to work with.

Secret filming of somebody in their workplace is deemed very invasive. If this is a situation where it's deemed necessary, and would be within the law, every precaution would have to be taken.

Feel free to pm me if you like @BrianD3 I've actually been in a similar situation to yourself.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462394#Comment_121462394

I understand entirely you were coming from the right place and maybe I'm just being over sensitive about the issue. 👍

But I still wouldn't see it as a mistake.

I suspect Mr McCabe felt duty bound to act the way he did and sleeps quite well at night, despite the mistakes others made thinking they could intimidate and bully him.

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121462138#Comment_121462138

I don't think I've ignored the evidence, only challenged it. And let's face it, a single study doesn't amount to a whole pile of evidence in the first place.

And as for Michael Martin, I think you've just helped my point, that a certain level of corruption has become normalised in Ireland.

Perhaps Martin is entirely innocent of wrongdoing, but to be put forward again for election, and to be allowed become party leader, having offered an excuse as flimsy as 'that developers money was just resting in my wife's bank account' just shows how desensitized we've become.

Caquas

Mick Clifford wrote the book on Sgt. McCabe and asks all the right questions about this fitness to practice hearing.

[Judge] Charlton didn’t hold back in his assessment.

“A public body, paid for by the taxpayer, has a fundamental duty of self-scrutiny in pursuit of the highest standards. The administration of Tusla was sorely lacking in application and in dedication to duty,” he reported.

Now, years later it emerges that those who may have a case to answer will be doing so in private and any sanction may also be dispensed in private. 

I would add this - if a medical condition is grounds for a private hearing, expect all our major criminals to develop such conditions after an arrest. So much better than mere anonymity😜

https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41285383.html

bobbyss

I just finished a book about Maurice McCabe. What he has been through! Very enjoyable it was too. One thing that struck me was the fact that at a number of meetings he recorded the conversation. I am presuming he did not tell the other people he was doing that? From reading the book this came to his rescue on a number of occasion to prove or disprove things.

Are you allowed to record like this in a covert way? ie without telling the other party? (Or did he tell the other party? The book does not say so)

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121953683#Comment_121953683

Ireland is apparently one party consent, so as long as the person recording is a party to the conversation (and thereby consents) the recording is legal. Conversely if someone just hid a recorder in his bosses desk and went back to collect it later to listen to other conversations his boss had with other people he was not privy to, that would be illegal. IANAL: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#:~:text=of%20the%20conversation.-,Ireland,one%20participant%20from%20the%20conversation.

Brussels Sprout

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121953683#Comment_121953683

Are you allowed? What do you mean? There's unlikely to be any laws against it but there may be something in the conditions of your employment that could cost you your job (which is a moot point in his case).

mickdw

I believe you should disclose to other parties if recording them however with the skullduggery that was going on and the high profile people involved, recording regardless of.how they were obtained were going to be absolute gold and in McCabes case was the difference between him winning this or being completely trampled into the ground.

Bobeagleburger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121954576#Comment_121954576

I don't think you need to inform the other person if recording.

See post above from Overheal

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121954618#Comment_121954618

OK fair enough.

bobbyss

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121953691#Comment_121953691

That's interesting. I didn't know that.

So if I called the bank or an accountant or whomever, I could secretly record the conversation and that is ok?

Don't some companies tell you when you phone them that they are recording you? Why do they do that if there is no legal need to?

Bobeagleburger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121954849#Comment_121954849

Regarding your last point.

Maybe because other people will use the recording other than the person actually making the recording? Not 100% on that.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121954849#Comment_121954849

it's great when they tell you "Calls may be recorded". Well, thank you very much.

Asdfgh2020

re McCabe. I know quite a few gardai and on a couple of occasions when I brought up the subject of McCabe they had very little time for him…..is the ‘national hero’ label a bit ott….?

Suckler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960784#Comment_121960784

I'd have more issue with the "they had very little time for him" statements rather than the "National Hero" statement to be honest.

gym_imposter

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960784#Comment_121960784

Most guards prefer those colleagues who don't rock the boat and turn a blind eye to corruption

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960977#Comment_121960977

can you elaborate further……if macabe was such an honourable figure and worthy of being regarded a ‘national hero’ as some have mentioned here…..why would fellow gardai who had nothing to do with the case not be full of praise for him…..?

Asdfgh2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121961169#Comment_121961169

don’t think that this ‘blind eye’ approach only applies to the gardai

Oscar_Madison

jayzuz - what a pack of pr1cks - so this is what happens when someone complains in the guards - we’ve seen it once too often at this stage

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-41363611.html

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121960784#Comment_121960784

How much time did they spend blowing into alcohol breath tests? In all they managed to fake 1.5 million of them to pretend they were monitoring drink driving.

Are they upset at not being able to quash penalty points anymore? My heart bleeds for them.

He is a national hero. I wonder how much worse our road death toll would be if above were still happening. The Gardai would still be utterly corrupt if he hadn't taken a stand.

The Tusla file smear was a nice touch though. The Gardai must be proud of their former leadership. McCabe is lucky to be alive today