[Speaking in the Seanad during Order of Business]
Link to video:
http://media.heanet.ie/oireachtas/asx.php?Channel=Seanad&Date=20140527&StartTime=06:04:36.000&Duration=00:02:50.000
I wish to make the case that we should have a special session in this House and invite Garda Wilson and Sergeant McCabe to address us. …… It is not plausible to me that the list of complaints and irregularities which were brought to bear by these two men over a long period of years were not known to many other people. A very limited number of people have had responsibility apportioned to them and have either taken their own course of action or have had it forced upon them, but the culture within the public service indicates to me that what happened to these men and the reaction which occurred when they brought serious matters to light, was not an isolated occurrence.
This is the way our public service works routinely: I have seen it in the health service; I have seen it in the enforcement arms of the health service; I have seen it in State-funded institutions; I have seen it when health professionals have pointed out problems; and I have seen administrators try to blacken the name of individuals who have pointed out real and genuine discrepancies. I am afraid that the fact that it is so widespread and so widely tolerated, speaks to something within our national culture. I think we have a tendency to form tribal divisions and that this is the only possible explanation one could have when after the last elections, two broadly similar political parties with broadly similar sets of policies and a third party which had very different policies, re-arranged themselves into a coalition where one of the major parties and one of the other parties that had the different perspective, came together, the reason being that we tend to form clubs, cliques or tribes. Anyone who breaks ranks will be criticised. Anyone informing on problems will be considered to be a tout or an informer. This is what has happened.
We need to give great air play to what these two men did. There is much that we could learn and there is much that the public service could learn and there is much that our broader society could learn about the importance of telling the truth, even if it is inconvenient for those who identify themselves as being our allies.
