Frenzy and Betrayal by Alan Shatter

Author:Alan Shatter [Shatter, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Political, Historical
ISBN: 9781785372391
Google: qK2aDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Merrion Press
Published: 2019-05-29T03:12:09+00:00

CHAPTER 25

Varadkar’s Source

Now it’s ‘coming for a head’ time –Front-page lead headline, Sunday Independent, 23 March 2014

Shatter has finally lost touch with reality –Gene Kerrigan, Sunday Independent, 23 March 2014

Is Shatter asking Kenny; just Back Me or Sack Me –Sam Smyth, Irish Mail on Sunday, 23 March 2014

The story that won’t die –Pat Leahy, Sunday Business Post, 23 March 2014

Political victory for Leo –Irish Sun editorial, 23 March 2014

It was Sunday, 23 March 2014, and Mexico seemed a long time ago. The Sunday papers, television and radio news and current affairs chat shows were dominated by what had become a full-scale Garda and political megadrama. Varadkar was depicted as the handsome hero, Luke Skywalker, and Martin Callinan and I joined at the hip as Darth Vader, with the shadow of Maurice McCabe cast across the whole stage.

After almost three weeks of relative sanity, it was Groundhog Day. The media frenzy of the dark days of February 2014 had returned. It was also the weekend of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis and Micheál Martin and Niall Collins tried to fan the flames of controversy but played bit parts and were no more than a sideshow.

Respecting Enda’s wishes, the Justice Press Office had continued to brief all press callers that I would address the issue at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting and in Thursday’s Dáil debate on the Garda Inspectorate Report and that ‘no, Alan has not fallen out with Leo’. I expected that Varadkar would show some respect for the Taoiseach’s ‘preference’ that the issue be kept for Cabinet. It was a great expectation.

I had not, during our three years in Government, engaged in any public row with any Cabinet colleague. Nor, through any Special Adviser or Press Officer (i.e. ‘source close to the Minister’) had I briefed on or off the record against a colleague. I regarded Joan’s regular digs at Eamon as unfair and disingenuous and I was not going down that road with Leo. That perspective was to prove politically naive, possibly fatal.

Reading through the papers, similar stories appeared that clearly were not invented by the journalists. They could only have been the product of briefings intended to both promote Varadkar’s swashbuckling image and portray me as arrogant and uncommunicative.

The respected political editor of the Sunday Business Post, Pat Leahy, predicting a ‘Cabinet showdown over the Garda whistleblowers’, wrote about Varadkar’s ‘growing unhappiness’ for months, asserting that he had tried to press the Penalty Points controversy as ‘a road safety issue’ while I insisted ‘it was a Garda matter’. This was fictitious nonsense as such distinction had never ever occurred to me. However, I was certain that this fantasy narrative was not invented by Leahy.

The Road Safety Authority had acknowledged that the objective of the Fixed Charge Notice Processing System was to bring about compliance with road safety measures and to reduce fatalities. As far as I was concerned, it was about ensuring that it did so and that the system was properly and fairly administered. This had been the

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