Maurice McCabe settles legal action against State and Tusla for undisclosed sum
Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe has settled his legal action against the State and Tusla for an undisclosed sum.
The settlement came after weeks of negotiations between the legal teams for Mr McCabe and the State agencies over the 11 separate actions brought by the former garda sergeant and his family.
The actions were based on how Mr McCabe, who retired from the force last year, was dealt with in the aftermath of making complaints of malpractice in the force in 2008.
Last year, the Disclosures Tribunal found he had been subjected to a “campaign of calumny” by former garda commissioner Martin Callinan and former garda press officer David Taylor in 2014.
Mr McCabe’s woes began in 2008 after he had compiled a dossier illustrating how up to a dozen investigations of mainly serious crime had been mishandled.
Later, he exposed the abuse in An Garda Siochana of the penalty points system in road policing.
In both instances of complaint, initial internal inquiries by the gardaí provided a picture that was at great variance with Mr McCabe’s complaints but in both cases external inquiries later vindicated his complaints.
The chair of the Disclosures Tribunal Judge Peter Charleton found that Sgt McCabe, as he then was, had correctly raised concerns about low standards in An Garda Siochana for which there were attempts to wrongly blame him.
“Maurice McCabe remains a public-spirited, decent and kind individual but one suffering from the effects of strain,” the judge wrote, referencing the pressure to which the sergeant had been subjected in the years since he had first made complaints.
Judge Kevin O’Higgins who chaired a commission of investigation into Mr McCabe’s original complaints said he had “shown courage and performed a genuine public service at considerable personal cost. For this he is due the gratitude of not only the general public but also of An Garda Siochana.”
