A former special adviser to former justice minister Frances Fitzgerald has said she did not discuss with anyone an internal Department of Justice email about a row that had emerged at the O’Higgins Commission over the garda legal strategy.
Marion Mannion was giving evidence to the Disclosures Tribunal, which is examining whether or not former garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan inappropriately relied on unjustified grounds to discredit whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe at the O’Higgins Commission.
Ms Mannion told the tribunal that when she received the email sent on 15 May 2015, the second day of the commission’s hearings, she was not concerned by it and noted there was no further action to be taken by the minister.
She outlined that the position the minister had taken from the very start was to follow an established practice not to comment on matters in a legal forum.
Ms Mannion said she had not discussed the email with anyone else and she did not hear any discussion about it by any of the 11 people who received it.
The tribunal was shown a copy of Ms Mannion’s notes from the period when the O’Higgins Commission report was published in May 2016.
Counsel for the tribunal Diarmaid McGuinness put it to Ms Mannion that her notes appeared to show there was discussion of the garda commissioner’s legal advice, which Nóirín O’Sullivan had forwarded on to Ms Fitzgerald at a meeting on 18 May 2016 between the former minister, the acting secretary general and deputy secretary general of the department.
Ms Mannion said her recollection was that she did not attend that meeting, but had noted that it was taking place.
The tribunal heard Ms Mannion was present at a meeting between Ms O’Sullivan and Frances Fitzgerald in May 2016 when the then minister asked the then garda commissioner if she had been doing one thing in public and another in private in relation to Sgt McCabe.
Ms Mannion said Ms O'Sullivan had denied that.
She said the former commissioner had said she did not assert at any stage that Sgt McCabe acted out of malice.
Ms Mannion said Ms O’Sullivan did not say she had questioned Sgt McCabe’s motivation.
Counsel for Sgt McCabe, Michael McDowell, put it to Ms Mannion that there appeared to be a reference in her notes from May 2016 to a leak of the O’Higgins report to RTÉ.
Mr McDowell suggested this leak was being discussed at a meeting between Ms Fitzgerald and Ms O’Sullivan.
The tribunal saw a copy of the note which contained the phrase "McCabe told an untruth".
Ms Mannion said she had no recollection of the issue being discussed between the then garda commissioner and the former minister.
She said it could have been discussed, but she said she had no memory of why she wrote the note.
Ms Mannion said the notes were not minutes of a meeting but her own personal notes.
