McGuinness: 'I had witnessed this man since I first came across him in 2011 being destroyed year on year'

Former PAC chairman John McGuinness has said he witnessed garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe getting "destroyed" year after and year and found it difficult to repeat allegations against him.

McGuinness: 'I had witnessed this man since I first came across him in 2011 being destroyed year on year'

Former PAC chairman John McGuinness has said he witnessed garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe getting "destroyed" year after and year and found it difficult to repeat allegations against him.

Continuing his evidence at the Disclosures Tribunal this morning, the TD was cross-examined about meeting former garda commissioner Martin Callinan, who he says made allegations of sexual abuse against Sgt McCabe.

The tribunal heard queries from barrister Micheal P O'Higgins, acting for gardai, about his meeting with the commissioner in a hotel car park on the Naas Rd, on January 24, 2014.

It was here as well as at a committee meeting the previous day in Leinster House where the garda chief made claims that the whistleblower has sexually abused children.

The barrister asked the TD about his note keeping around the car park meeting as well as his decision to stand up in the Dail in 2016 and recount the episode for the first time.

The TD said he initially found it difficult to recount the allegations to others, having dealt with Sgt McCabe and the penalty points scandal for a number of years.

Mr McGuinness said this morning that if the commissioner asked to meet you, you met him out of respect for the Gardai.

“I met him on my own. I brought no entourage with me, I brought no officials.”

The TD said he had to consider what was being said and if I believed the Commissioner or Sgt McCabe, who had denied the rumours to him.

“On the basis of the work I was doing at the PAC, I considered that work highly important and that it should proceed.”

“I had questioned Maurice McCabe on the general issues of gossip and rumour within Leinster House. He made it clear to me that none of it was true, that he had heard it all partially.”

But SC Mr O'Higgins, for Mr Callinan, asked why the TD did not immediately tell Sgt McCabe of the secret car park meeting and why it took him until May 2016 to reveal this in a Dail debate.

"I had witnessed this man since I first came across him in 2011 being destroyed year on year"

When he was told the story, he said, it was difficult for him to repeat it.

There had already been "malicious" rumours circulating about Sgt McCabe in Leinster House, the TD told the tribunal earlier this week.

But the secret meeting with the garda chief shed more light on these allegations, the tribunal was told by Mr McGuinness.

The Carlow-Kilkenny TD said he was told by the garda chief that was there was a file and that the prosecution in relation to this was ongoing and fact that sex abuse involved family members.

“It was no longer a rumour, a piece of tittle tattle or gossip, it was being presented as fact,” added the TD.

The tribunal is investigating whether there was a campaign to discredit Sgt McCabe by the force.

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