Garda chief under fire again

THE head of legal affairs in An Garda Síochána has written to the Public Accounts Committee contradicting evidence by Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.

The PAC has been examining the 50plus bank accounts previously held by the Garda College in Templemore, and the possibly fraudulent activity associated with it.

Commissioner O’Sullivan has come under criticism from her own colleagues who have disputed her version of events about when she became aware of the serious problems in the college, amongst other issues.

And in a letter sent to the PAC last night, the head of legal affairs, Ken Ruane, said that he did not agree with the Commissioner’s sentiment that it was the job of the steering committee – tasked with sorting out those issues – to tell the Justice Minister and Comptroller & Auditor General about the irregularities in the college.

It emerged last week that four days after discovering the irregularities in the college, Ms O’Sullivan wrote to the C&AG but did not inform him of what she had learned about Templemore.

The Commissioner said this was because she did not have enough information at the time.

Previously, Ms O’Sullivan told the committee: ‘The fact is, this group was established and it was to go through the process of informing all the relevant parties, keeping the department and everyone else informed of that. I entrusted the job, and the sequence with which that was done, to the group as it was established.’

But Mr Ruane said last night in a new letter to the committee that he does not agree with this view.

He wrote: ‘In my personal capacity as an individual who was asked to be a member of this group, I do not accept and cannot agree with the statement made above by the Commissioner in the context of the process of informing all the relevant parties.’