Alan Kelly claims Ministers ‘acted without legal authority’ over Garda whistleblowers

Labour justice spokesman Alan Kelly has said Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan and his predecessor Helen McEntee acted “without legal authority” in their handling of Garda protected disclosures.

This is “very, very dangerous territory” and “potentially fatal” for the Government and it “needs to change course”, he said of the continuing controversy surrounding Garda whistleblowers.

He also said the family of Det Garda Colm Horkan, who was murdered in 2020, would not co-operate with any investigation by policing watchdog Fiosrú into the circumstances of his death in Castlerea, Co Roscommon. “They feel let down,” he said.

However, Tánaiste Simon Harris told him O’Callaghan and McEntee always do their duty “in line with the best possible advice available”.

He was open to a public inquiry and said there should be further engagement with the family to find a way that works for them to answer their concerns about the circumstances of Horkan’s death.

Kelly said McEntee sent a protected disclosure from Det Supt Brian O’Reilly about defective gun holsters to An Garda Síochána and in doing so had “acted without legal authority”.

When O’Callaghan came into office, he sent the protected disclosure “as a complaint” and in doing so “acted without authority”.

He claimed they made the admissions in the Dáil on Wednesday during a debate on the issue.

The Tipperary TD also said O’Reilly has been “treated like dirt” by An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice, and that his protective disclosures “were left in abeyance for three years”.

Raising the issue during Dáil Leaders’ Questions, he said once the Office of the Protective Disclosures Commission appointed the then secretary general of the Department of Justice in 2023 to deal with this protective disclosure, it was “locked in time”.

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O’Reilly’s protected disclosures included concerns about alleged shortcomings in leather holsters on issue to more than 1,500 gardaí. It was claimed the holsters were not fit for purpose and contributed to one garda being shot and injured in an accidental discharge.

Six days later in June 2020 in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, Horkan was murdered with his own gun by Stephen Silver, who took the weapon from the holster and shot the officer 11 times.

On Wednesday, O’Callaghan confirmed in the Dáil he had asked Fiosrú to investigate the family’s concerns about what happened “to their son and brother on the night he was murdered”.

Kelly said the Horkan family have dismissed this as “nonsense”, saying: “They feel let down. They won’t be co-operating with any such investigation.”

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Fiosrú’s predecessor Gsoc was tasked with investigating the issue of the holsters 11 months before Colm Horkan was murdered but “couldn’t do it because they couldn’t get co-operation of An Garda Síochána”, Kelly said.

“How is the family meant to have confidence in the same organisation, newly re-established, to do an investigation that they couldn’t do back then,” he said.

Harris told him: “I know that both Minister McEntee and Minister O’Callaghan would always discharge their duties in line with the best possible advice available to them, and with respect to the law.”

He said O’Callaghan “retains an open mind on a public inquiry, and I want to reiterate that today”.

“I think we need to have further engagement with the family and to work out how best to put a mechanism in place to address their very sincerely held concerns about the brutal murder and the loss of their loved one,” Harris said.

“We need to find a mechanism that works for them in terms of trying to get those answers.”