Wallace V Shatter

wicklowstevo wrote: »

the practice of placing someone you suspect to be drunk in a standard family car with access to grabbing the driver from behind and restraining her first you mean ......

just because she is in the dail should she get special consideration , i think not

procedure is there for a reason , safety , any other country in the world same thing except in some she would have been over the limit,

on topic, didnt she get a caution instead of a ticket for the u turn . ooooo the corruption of it all lol lol lol

Not really, because she is innocent and did not commit any crime but how did the leak get to the press which is a crime?

Anynama141 wrote: »

Indeed - in a black and white world, context is irrelevant.

I'd be quite happy if Shatter resigned tomorrow. Wallace should be locked up.

No, 'context', as you see it, in this instance, is irrelevant
This was typical 'play the man, not the ball' politics; as well as being just plain wrong.
Thought FG had promised they'd be above all that stuff.
Then again, they promised a lot of things.

Anynama141 wrote: »

So if you catch - say - the hitman who murdered Veronica Guerin, or the scum who murdered Shane Geoghegan, you don't get to handcuff him until AFTER he is convicted?

Are you sure you have thought this concept through?

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dis-rail this thread so if you want to talk about the Clare Daly arrest please we please post on that thread, no disrespect intended.

On my earlier post

Minister Shatter said

Quote:
“Deputy Wallace himself was stopped on a mobile phone last May by members of An Garda Síochána and he was advised by the guard who stopped him that a fixed ticket charge could issue and he could be given penalty points,” he said. “But the garda apparently, as I’m advised, used his discretion and warned him and told him not to do it again.”
So who advised him of this? It could have come from two sources

1. Mr Wallace. Very unlikely.

or

2. An Garda Siochána. From which I can see 3 sources

2.1. The Garda who stopped him. How often do ordinary members of AGS get to have a chat and gossip with the Minister for Justice about who they saw driving while on a mobile phone. As well as that, given the antipathy that the Minister is held in by the ordinary member on the street I find this equally unlikely. Also why would they risk their job by disclosing confidential information.

2.2. The stop was logged somewhere and given to the minister. This opens up a whole new can of worms such as why was it logged, who gave him the file, what else is in the file, are their files on other politicians, what is the purpose of these files, etc,etc,etc. i.e. Political policing.

2.3. The Guard who stopped him said it to someone else who told the Minister. Given that (imho) most Guards are more likely to describe their sexual fetish with ostriches rather than discuss their days work with a civilian, I also find this unlikely and as a solicitor I'm sure he knows not to rely on hearsay.

Who do you think advised the Minister?

Fred Cohen wrote: »

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dis-rail this thread so if you want to talk about the Clare Daly arrest please we please post on that thread, no disrespect intended.

On my earlier post

Minister Shatter said

Quote:
“Deputy Wallace himself was stopped on a mobile phone last May by members of An Garda Síochána and he was advised by the guard who stopped him that a fixed ticket charge could issue and he could be given penalty points,” he said. “But the garda apparently, as I’m advised, used his discretion and warned him and told him not to do it again.”
So who advised him of this? It could have come from two sources

1. Mr Wallace. Very unlikely.

or

2. An Garda Siochána. From which I can see 3 sources

2.1. The Garda who stopped him. How often do ordinary members of AGS get to have a chat and gossip with the Minister for Justice about who they saw driving while on a mobile phone. As well as that, given the antipathy that the Minister is held in by the ordinary member on the street I find this equally unlikely. Also why would they risk their job by disclosing confidential information.

2.2. The stop was logged somewhere and given to the minister. This opens up a whole new can of worms such as why was it logged, who gave him the file, what else is in the file, are their files on other politicians, what is the purpose of these files, etc,etc,etc. i.e. Political policing.

2.3. The Guard who stopped him said it to someone else who told the Minister. Given that (imho) most Guards are more likely to describe their sexual fetish with ostriches rather than discuss their days work with a civilian, I also find this unlikely and as a solicitor I'm sure he knows not to rely on hearsay.

Who do you think advised the Minister?

Shatter may find that there is a problem getting anyone to 'recollect' revealing the information to him, other than by order of a Minister.

Anynama141 wrote: »

Where did I say she refused a sample?

Sorry I misread what you`d written. Ridiculous that she was handcuffed after their equipment failed to work.

Anynama141 wrote: »

Uh...I'm not justifying what he did. The clue is in the fact that I said several times it was wrong and in the post you quote I said he should resign.

But understanding why someone did something is not the same as excusing it. It must have been pretty galling listening to tax fraudster Wallace bang on about the police using their discretion for politicians without admitting that he had been a beneficiary of exactly that. Did it make him blow his top and do the stupid thing he did? I haven't listened to the whole interview so I don't know the context.

What difference does it make what might be 'pretty galling' for him?

And do you really think listening to 'tax fraudster' would gall someone like Shatter, an experienced politician and barrister, who has managed to hold his tongue in speaking out against some fairly dodgy characters associated with his own party, so much that he just couldn't contain himself?

He couldn't just debate what he was there to debate with Wallace, who RTE, presumably, for some reason, had chosen to be the one there to debate with him?

Instead, he chose to divulge personal information, that it would seem, he shouldn't even have been privy to.

Seemed calculated to me; perhaps, given the backlash, it will turn out to have been mis-calculated.

But don't worry, i wouldn't hold my breath: i'm sure he'll be fine..

Anynama141 wrote: »

The difference is that it might have angered him into doing something that he should not have - I would have thought that was quite clear from my post?

In Britain, he'd have resigned already. We don't really do accountability terribly well in this country, unfortunately.

There's an outside chance he'll go as FG actually do ministerial resignations (Coveney Senior, for example), but if he was a Fianna Failure, there wouldn't be the slightest chance.

I'm no FF supporter.. however, didn't Mr. Willy "It's me, Willy O'Dea" O'Dea resign over a similar situation? Except he wasn't MoJ. & he couldn't remember the name of the Garda who told him what he was told.

Any sign of Enda telling us whether it's alright or no for our MoJ to act as he has?

The real scandal is that Wallace is still allowed to sit in the dail getting paid by people who pay their tax so he can shout populist slogans.

SB2013 wrote: »

You mean like all the people who she claimed had penalty points quashed. They hadn't been charged or convicted either. Yet somehow it's different when its her or Wallace. You can't use a Garda leak for political gain then complain when it's done to you.

I think that it is very worrying lapse by Shatter who has consistently shown a very thin skin (the paul reynolds incident where by he personally attacked the reporters integrity for breaking a story about shatter appointing a close ally to a key justice post is a prime example) over the years which shows that he has a distinct lack of judgement when the red mist descends.More than any other ministerial post a MOJ needs a cool head and discretion given the sensitive nature of the material that he is dealing with.

While I personally dislike Shatter and I don't agree with many of his political views (Israel,londonderry gate) I do believe that he is one of the only genuinely talented ministers and is a real reformer. He is making genuinely necessary reforms to previously almost unreformable institutions the Gardai and the legal professions.

Alan Shatter is operating at the very highest level of government in one of the most serious posts.Shatter has worked for his entire political career to be where he is now. Wallace is essentially a complete clown with no credibility. I do not believe that you can compare the MOJ leaking information to attack a political opponent who is making trouble for him to a lowlevel TD leaking information (however sloppily) from a whistleblower to highlight a very real problem in the Gardai of highlevel officers doing favours for friends.As farcical and hypocritical as the Independent campaign was even the gardais internal report acknowledged that 10% of all points voided was done improperly and three senior officers are being disciplined so there was a real (if relatively minor) problem.

The MOJ has openly shown that he is prepared to look into any opponents police file for indiscretions (no matter how minor) and he will use that information against them on prime time tv. That diminishes the dignity of the position of the office and of Alan Shatter himself and shows a frightening lack of judgement.