Garda Ombudsman offices bugged

tayto lover · 13-02-2014 10:52PM

I hope the Ombudsman, O'Brien, is not sacked for making a simple mistake i.e. telling Shatter one thing and the Committee another story.
He seems a nice man.

downonthefarm · 13-02-2014 10:52PM

Shatter telling porkies.

EireGun · 13-02-2014 10:55PM

What a useless "interview" on Prime Time.

Wouldn't mind getting the opinion on Alan Shatter from a body language expert...

aloyisious · 13-02-2014 10:58PM

i have to agree, the interviewer is useless at trying to trip him up, she keeps hopping away from the questions before he's fully answered them, so she doesn't even give herself time to analyse them and catch him out on incorrect replies. Bah, waste of studio time, unless it's RTE covering it's arse "we did give him airtime".

Happyman42 · 13-02-2014 10:58PM

The smiling! The smiling! The man knows he's a beaten docket.

tayto lover · 13-02-2014 10:58PM

downonthefarm wrote: »

Shatter telling porkies.

I don't like Shatter but to say he's lying in his interview is a bit harsh to be fair.
You don't know that. Nobody does as yet.

downonthefarm · 13-02-2014 11:01PM

tayto lover wrote: »

I don't like Shatter but to say he's lying in his interview is a bit harsh to be fair.
You don't know that. Nobody does as yet.

Fair enough,but the interviewer is not up to much.
Its rte so I'm not a bit surprised

dxhound2005 · 13-02-2014 11:08PM

DistanceVector wrote: »

I know this is not the politics sub section, but by fuk Ill keep bumping this thread to the top of AH if its the only worthwhile thing Ive done in my life...

Allow me.

sopretty · 13-02-2014 11:12PM

I don't think he did lie to him though. Shatter stated TONIGHT that O'Brien told him that there was NO DEFINITIVE EVIDENCE. O'Brien did not change that opinion when speaking to the committee! He just elaborated on it further at the committee hearing!

hatrickpatrick · 13-02-2014 11:20PM

Anyone know if Vincent Browne will be touching on this tonight, or is he finished with it for the time being?

sopretty · 13-02-2014 11:21PM

I would love to see a transcript of that primetime interview.
Basically, yer one asks him what he told him - he said (if my memory and hearing is still serving me correctly), that there was no definitive evidence.
The GSOC has not strayed from that story once since! They have elaborated on anomalies etc. But it seems to me that Shatter took the guarded statement of 'no definitive evidence' and ran with it!
Blondie then interrupted him to ask him whether he thought Simon O'Brien was lying to him.

who_ru · 13-02-2014 11:33PM

Shatter is essentially accusing Simon O Brian of misleading him on national tv. Or to put it another way he is saying the head of GSOC is a liar.
How then Can he have confidence in a man that leads a very important office at a crucial time in its history, if he implies he mislead him on such a serious issue?

He also arrogantly said O Brian probably isn't used to answering questions for such a long time as he did on Wednesday and perhaps this is the reason for the different account he gave to the committee.

Is this guy ****ing serious? What a dirtbag.

Stavros Murphy · 13-02-2014 11:36PM

who_ru wrote: »

Shatter is essentially accusing Simon O Brian of misleading him on national tv. Or to put it another way he is saying the head of GSOC is a liar.
How then Can he have confidence in a man that leads a very important office at a crucial time in its history, if he implies he mislead him on such a serious issue?

He also arrogantly said O Brian probably isn't used to answering questions for such a long time as he did on Wednesday and perhaps this is the reason for the different account he gave to the committee.

Is this guy ****ing serious? What a dirtbag.

He never said the name - he pointedly replied with "Gsoc blah blah" when asked directly about O'Brien.

Busted Flat. · 13-02-2014 11:46PM

Stavros Murphy wrote: »

He never said the name - he pointedly replied with "Gsoc blah blah" when asked directly about O'Brien.

This is something like how the Watergate corruption started out, who knows how the ball will roll, hopefully it will roll in the direction of the young Guards that are intent on doing their job correctly and not in the direction of the corrupt. We have seen a lot of them in the past.

aloyisious · 13-02-2014 11:50PM

All the latest from The Indo: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/alan-shatter-asks-gsoc-to-clear-up-bugging-confusion-30008275.html LOL

Edited: plus this from The Examiner, the war of words hots up (last two Paras) and the 5th last para is curious, it doesn't specify what offence is thought to have been committed, nor whether it is related to the affair, it just pops up in the article, so????????? http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/bugging-of-gsoc-office-may-have-been-authorised-258634.html

Stavros Murphy · 14-02-2014 12:00AM

aloyisious wrote: »

All the latest from The Indo: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/alan-shatter-asks-gsoc-to-clear-up-bugging-confusion-30008275.html LOL

cutting stuff. Go Indo.

tayto lover · 14-02-2014 12:02AM

I'm sure the Ombudsman will clear all this up tomorrow when he receives Shatter's request.
Surely all he has to do is read the report properly and clear it up once and for all.

dxhound2005 · 14-02-2014 12:09AM

Busted Flat. wrote: »

This is something like how the Watergate corruption started out, who knows how the ball will roll, hopefully it will roll in the direction of the young Guards that are intent on doing their job correctly and not in the direction of the corrupt. We have seen a lot of them in the past.

I predict that it will be soon forgotten. Since everyone, the Minister, the GSOC, the Gardai, the consultants, the journalist all say either there was no bugging or that if there was nobody can prove it, then where can it go. A nice boost for Sunday Times circulation next Sunday and Mr Mooney will probably get a bonus.

There is a serious issue though, completely low level, non James Bond type espionage. This is the leaking of material like the consultants report and a transcript of a conversation between a whistle blower Garda and his confidential recipient to the media. A confidential recipient is a retired Judge or barrister type person. And not just any media but a Murdoch journalist, whose organisation has been proved to have made payments to corrupt public officials in order to buy information off them.

who_ru · 14-02-2014 12:20AM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I predict that it will be soon

I very much doubt that. Shatter must be desperate to play that game tonight.

Phoebas · 14-02-2014 12:28AM

who_ru wrote: »

I very much doubt that. Shatter must be desperate to play that game tonight.

Unless there's new information in the ST its hard to see what's going to sustain it.
The only ongoing investigation is one to find the leaker and the opposition don't seem to know where to go with it. An independent enquiry would just kick it to touch.

14-02-2014 12:29AM

who_ru wrote: »

I very much doubt that. Shatter must be desperate to play that game tonight.

Agreed. The media are squeezing this to death. There's too much focus on this now, the coverage is not suddenly going to come to a stop. As long as its in the papers and on the airwaves, there'll be enough new bits and piece to keep this ticking along for a while yet.

Phoebas wrote: »

Unless there's new information in the ST its hard to see what's going to sustain it.

If not from there, new info will pop up somewhere. I have a feeling about this. This has an air of leading to something bigger. Talking out my arse here of course, but you know.

Banjo String · 14-02-2014 12:39AM

Is it just me, or does shatter resemble a thunderbird puppet

Busted Flat. · 14-02-2014 12:41AM

Banjo String wrote: »

Is it just me, or does shatter resemble a thunderbird puppet

Ya can't say that, remember what the guy said to the whistle blower.

hatrickpatrick · 14-02-2014 03:20AM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

I predict that it will be soon forgotten. Since everyone, the Minister, the GSOC, the Gardai, the consultants, the journalist all say either there was no bugging or that if there was nobody can prove it, then where can it go. A nice boost for Sunday Times circulation next Sunday and Mr Mooney will probably get a bonus.

There is a serious issue though, completely low level, non James Bond type espionage. This is the leaking of material like the consultants report and a transcript of a conversation between a whistle blower Garda and his confidential recipient to the media. A confidential recipient is a retired Judge or barrister type person. And not just any media but a Murdoch journalist, whose organisation has been proved to have made payments to corrupt public officials in order to buy information off them.

Sorry just to clarify your last point, you're saying that in terms of the transcript of the conversation between the confidential recipient and the whistleblower, the important, serious issue is the fact that it was leaked - not the allegations contained within that the confidential recipient either threatened or warned the whistleblower that Shatter would come after him if he rocked the boat?

Literally unbelievable. I'm not even picking an argument, I'm genuinely astonished that quite a few people see the leaking of such scandalous information to the public as being more serious than the information itself. The question of who leaked this transcript absolutely pales in comparison to the question of whether Shatter is indeed the vicious bully the transcript makes him out to be and whether the confidential recipient issued threats by proxy. If any of that turns out to be true, then whoever leaked the conversation is deserving of an award for services to the Irish people. Any minister who would engage in such behavior has to go.

Femme_Fatale · 14-02-2014 03:21AM

Banjo String wrote: »

Is it just me, or does shatter resemble a thunderbird puppet

I'd have said a 70s crooner type, like Julio Iglesias.

Happyman42 · 14-02-2014 11:14AM

Banjo String wrote: »

Is it just me, or does shatter resemble a thunderbird puppet

You may have a point.

touts · 14-02-2014 11:19AM

Pat Rabbitt on RTE1 and Rurai Quinn on Newstalk at the same time positioning the Labout party in the "It looks like something suspicious was going on but we're not sure what" camp. Definately closer to the GSOC version of events than Shatter's. Looks like Labour are hedging their bets on this....

SpaceTime · 14-02-2014 11:24AM

The 'problem' is that this is far too serious to spin.

The media and the public has a very heightened awareness of spying due to the WikiLeaks revelations over the last few years and this is going to turn into a huge issue. There's also quite a lot of support for proper, transparent regulation and an awareness of the importance of it since the banking crisis.

I would also suspect that the banking crisis has caused a lot of people to have a genuinely held mistrust of the state's ability to act impartially. There's still a *long* way to go before the state regains any kind of trust after what happened back in 2007/8 and this kind of thing is really not helping at all.

Also, if it's not dealt with you can be 100% sure it will be in our next Transparency International report and any other international ratings agency that look at that kind of thing.

By 'dealt with' I mean, investigated and the results of that investigation published. Sweeping under the carpet is not dealing with anything.

Regardless of what the facts are, the optics are now awful looking and it's going to do a lot of political damage to FG and Labour (even more so) if they continue to try to push it under the carpet.

ygolometsipe · 14-02-2014 11:36AM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Sorry just to clarify your last point, you're saying that in terms of the transcript of the conversation between the confidential recipient and the whistleblower, the important, serious issue is the fact that it was leaked - not the allegations contained within that the confidential recipient either threatened or warned the whistleblower that Shatter would come after him if he rocked the boat?

Literally unbelievable. I'm not even picking an argument, I'm genuinely astonished that quite a few people see the leaking of such scandalous information to the public as being more serious than the information itself. The question of who leaked this transcript absolutely pales in comparison to the question of whether Shatter is indeed the vicious bully the transcript makes him out to be and whether the confidential recipient issued threats by proxy. If any of that turns out to be true, then whoever leaked the conversation is deserving of an award for services to the Irish people. Any minister who would engage in such behavior has to go.

I don't want to side track much from the actual issue which is that the state watchdog of our police force was likely bugged and watched.

But, it it a complete non issue that the document was leaked. The government should know this or they could always ask Enda K since his knowledge of legislation is top notch.

I am not a solicitor but the oireachtas have already stated in this report
http://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/housesoftheoireachtas/libraryresearch/spotlights/2011_Spotlight_duty_to_inform_173444[1].pdf
that multiple scenario's exist in current legislation to allow for whistle blowing
and further allowances are proposed.

Also lets read the official secretes act.
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1963/en/act/pub/0001/sec0004.html#sec4

4.—(1) A person shall not communicate any official information to any other person unless he is duly authorised to do so or does so in the course of and in accordance with his duties as the holder of a public office or when it is his duty in the interest of the State to communicate it.

It does seem that the government are very excited at the possibility that GSOC committed a crime and no one else. I am sure we will hear all about the nasty boogeyman whistle-blower.

SpaceTime · 14-02-2014 11:41AM

What worries me is that Ireland has a long history of this mentality of immediately trying to shut down any dissenting voices.

If we'd supported whistle blowers, we wouldn't have had practically any of the deeply damaging and horrendous scandals that happened all throughout the years.

Just look at how as a society in the past we completely ignored all the child abuse issues going on in church-run institutions because nobody would rock the boat and upset people.
The result: thousands of lives wrecked and the state having to pay vast compensation.

Did nobody notice that symphysiotomy (an absolutely barbaric and outdated practice) was being carried out in maternity hospitals here ? If they did, why couldn't they blow the whistle?

More recently, the banks were allowed to run amuck because of a similar culture where nobody could blow the whistle and the regulator and state oversight was very weak.

There are countless situations in Ireland where we simply do not face reality and prefer to pretend that there's nothing going on.

Common thread : lack of transparency and a fear of upsetting the status quo.

It absolutely has to change if we're not simply going to repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat the same mistakes over and over.

Garda Ombudsman offices bugged

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