Why do the Irish denigrate the truth-seekers?

In Ireland, we tend to denigrate and ridicule those who seek out the truth or shine light on our darkness.                                             

Banking whistleblower Jonathan Sugarman

It’s as though the mirror they hold up to Irish society is too ugly to witness, too painful to face up to, so that it’s easier to assassinate their characters than to acknowledge their search for justice.

Take Jonathan Sugarman.

There are restaurants in Dublin who refuse to accept a reservation upon hearing his name. There are pubs where he’d be shunned, seen as a pariah, if he joined the great and the good as they let their hair down on a Friday night.

Because, for the vast majority of Irish bankers, the party has never stopped.

Why would they disown him? His only ‘crime’ has been to do his job properly and to tell us the truth.

When I spoke to him this week, ten years had passed since he did the right thing, at enormous cost to his finances, his career, and his mental health.

An Israeli citizen living and working in Ireland, he thought he was doing his adopted country a huge favour when he approached the Central Bank of Ireland to tell them an unpalatable truth.

A risk manager at the Dublin branch of a major Italian bank, Sugarman was alarmed to note serious liquidity breaches which could have cost the company severe penalties and Sugarman himself five years in prison.

The bank did not have enough money after giving out so many loans at the height of the ‘Celtic Tiger’.

He stepped forward, he went to the Irish police (the Gardai), he told the truth … and nothing happened. There were no dawn raids on his company’s offices, no consequences at all for his bank for failing to play by the rules. He felt he had no option but to resign.

He had warned the Irish banking watchdog that his bank was living beyond its means, little realising at the time that liquidity breaches were widespread across the industry in 2007. Not one bank in Ireland seemed to have the billions of euros required if their customers were to call in their debts.

A year later, the entire Irish banking system collapsed and the Government provided a blanket guarantee which plunged the economy into crisis and resulted in a €64 billion ‘bailout’ at enormous cost to the Irish tax-payer.

It seemed that virtually every bank in the country was in breach of the liquidity regulations, but not one other risk manager had spoken out.

All of them could have been imprisoned for five years, but not one banker in Ireland has been jailed. In Iceland, the corresponding figure is 25. Yet Sugarman has found himself on the margins, unable to work, because he dared to come forward and speak the truth.

A decade on, the same banks are guilty of defrauding 22,000 mortgage holders; these are ordinary Irish people, some of whom have lost their jobs, their relationships, and their homes.

The same bankers and regulators still enjoy their Friday evening gatherings in a select few Dublin hotels and pubs, but Sugarman is no longer invited to the party and his truth-telling has been at an enormous personal cost.

Yet, had the regulators listened, and acted, the massive collapse in the Irish banking system could have been avoided and generations of Irish people would not now be saddled with an enormous debt.

Take Catherine Corless.                                              

Brave historian Catherine Corless had to overcome
hostility from officials in her quest for the truth

When she began to investigate the deaths of so many babies at the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, business people in the town became alarmed.

When it emerged that 796 babies were buried in unmarked graves, as Catherine strove to give them a dignity denied them in life, officials blocked her attempts to find out the truth at every possible opportunity.

She never imagined the scale of the tragedy when she started to try to find out what happened to the ‘Tuam Babies’. 

But she persisted after hearing the story of how boys in the town stumbled upon the skulls and bones of babies while playing on the site of the former home in 1974.

Catherine worked tirelessly to discover the truth, despite facing hostility or

indifference from the Bon Secours order which ran the home, the Western Health Board, or Galway County Council.

It was a good job she did not socialise much, because as rumours about her research spread there were murmurings that she should leave well enough alone and that her research only served to harm the image of the town.

Her research was bad for Tuam, it seemed, even though it opened the eyes of the entire world to the way children were treated in 20th century Ireland. And she gave a voice to the survivors.

She has been vindicated this year, her findings verified by the Irish authorities, but only after being the subject of harsh and irrational criticism.

She’s deservedly picking up national awards now for her painstaking research but in April of this year, after her findings were lauded by the Irish Government, Catherine faced personalised abuse from the US.

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, described her as a credential-lacking charlatan who was not qualified to carry out her meticulous research in Tuam.

“Contrary to what virtually all news reports have said, Corless is not a historian,” said Donohue. “She not only does not have a Ph.D. in history, she doesn't have an undergraduate degree. She is a typist.”

Amazing how a man who earned a reported salary of $474,876 in 2013 could abuse his position to denigrate a woman who has done all of Ireland a service by shining a light on the deplorable treatment of innocent women and children in 20th century Ireland.

Only for Catherine’s painless research, the world would never have known about the 796 babies who were buried in unmarked graves in Tuam after being branded as “illegitimate” by the Irish authorities.

It seems that Corless’ message was so unpalatable to some senior figures in business, Church, and State, that they were prepared to attack and denigrate the messenger.

And then there’s Sergeant Maurice McCabe, a man who faced a personal hell before being vindicated in 2017.

In Garda Stations all around Ireland, the man was a pariah for the past decade, for daring to point out that the Irish police force’s computer system was being abused so that high profile people could evade convictions.

His revelations seem trivial compared to what we know about the Irish police force now.

In the land of the nod and the wink, of calling in connections, McCabe – like Sugarman – was ostracised for trying to obey the rules.

Colleagues made it impossible for him to turn up for work at Garda Stations and, even worse, rumours began to circulate –at the top levels of the force and among senior media personnel – that McCabe was a sex abuser.

Insiders thrived on the vicious rumours, which circulated without his knowledge, and it was only by accident that the most high-profile Garda whistle-blower in the history of the State found out about them.

Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe

The false, vicious, and completely spurious accusations that he had raped a six year old child were used to ridicule his claims that there was widespread abuse of power being carried out by members of the Garda Siochana.

How could anyone believe this honest Garda when there were such terrible rumours about him?

The smears, which circulated widely for two and a half years, were only unearthed when a member of staff at the child protection agency contacted Sgt McCabe in error about a “wrong” file. Otherwise, he might never have known about the unfounded allegations.

In recent weeks, the Irish public has been shocked to discover, via the policing authorities that two million drink-driving breath tests were fabricated by Gardai in a country with a population of 4.7 million.

In addition, 14,700 wrongful traffic convictions occurred.

Gardai, it seemed, were under pressure from management to “massage” their statistics so that they looked better on paper.

A few high-profile people having their convictions overturned now seems like small beer compared to the widespread misreporting of drink-drive figures all across the country.

In Ireland, it seems, there has been criminal negligence in banking, policing, and the way we take care of our most vulnerable children.

But, instead of admiring those who shine lights in the darkness, we vilify them because they are bad for business, the image of a town, industry or police service.

Because God forbid we listen to the brave souls who are prepared to stand up and point out the wrong-doing at the heart of Irish society.

It’s more convenient to persecute them, tie rats to their doors, or smear them with unfounded allegations, than admit they have done us a wonderful service by blowing a whistle on corrupt or criminal behaviour from those in positions of authority.

It’s easier to destroy a reputation or career than admit there’s a need to change an entire rotten, corrupt culture.

Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. Find him on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia

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The vilest smear of all

When I was a young reporter on a provincial newspaper in the 1990s, rumours began to circulate about a local politician among journalists, political representatives, and Gardai across the West of Ireland.

The whispers would surface occasionally at local authority meetings, press launches, or court hearings, spreading quickly from one media outlet to another in the small bubble which was the local media at the time.                                                                                

Brave whistleblower Maurice McCabe

The rumours were of a sexual nature and involved underage victims.

If they weren’t true, they were appalling slurs against a man who had a high profile in both sport and politics in the West of Ireland.

Until the day he died, I never heard any concrete evidence of wrong-doing against the man.

As far as I was aware, he was never questioned or charged in relation to the activities which were so well-known among journalists and politicians in one part of Ireland.

In those days, my role as a newspaper journalist involved regular phone contact with virtually every politician across the region.

I had no way of knowing whether the rumours about this particular man were true or not, but I heard them repeated so often that they clearly coloured my dealings with him.

I’d call him whenever I had to, I’d exchange pleasantries with him on the phone, but the unfounded allegations I had heard – with absolutely no substance to back them up – would hover in the back of my mind.

After his death, one of his party colleagues spoke to me with disarming honesty. He said that his friend was aware of the rumours for many years and that they had driven him to alcohol abuse and a very lonely life in his latter years.

So, in recent weeks, it was hard to imagine the kind of anguish the family of Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe was going through. This was a man whose only ‘crime’ was to be an honest policeman.

When he discovered that colleagues were bending the rules, abusing the Pulse system to allow high-profile people such as journalists to evade penalty points, he did what could only be described as the right thing.

A system of justice is discredited in the eyes of the people if justice is not served equally, but Sgt McCabe could hardly have imagined what was in store for him when he began to raise his concerns.

Maurice McCabe did Ireland a huge favour by stepping forward and daring to expose wrong-doing and the abuse of power.

As a result, he was falsely accused of raping a six year old child.

The accusations were not made public, but hidden away in a Tusla (child protection agency) file and spread as rumours among sections of the Gardai and media in Dublin.

Expressing solidarity with Sgt McCabe at
Shannon Airport last week

They were only unearthed after the wrong details were “copied and pasted” into the wrong Tusla file.

If that wasn’t malicious, it was a level of ineptitude which was unthinkable in a country which is still reeling from clerical sex abuse allegations which were covered up for decades.

Sgt McCabe was the subject of the worst smear anyone could face.

Those who instigated the smear knew full well that the rumours would spread when they shared them with Garda colleagues or crime correspondents in the media.

The implication was clear. How could you take the claims of a whistleblower seriously if you had heard the rumours?

Ireland is a small country and people love a bit of gossip, just as journalists and politicians thrived on the “inside information” we had – apparently without any substance – about our political friend in Galway in the 1990s.

For the ‘crime’ of telling the truth about corruption in our police force, Sgt McCabe was portrayed as a vile person who could not be trusted by some senior Gardai.

It is nothing short of frightening that a man whose only concern was bringing  the truth to light was vilified and branded as a sex abuser.

Former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan, who subsequently resigned from his job, branded his allegations as “disgusting”.

Imagine how difficult it was for Sgt McCabe to carry out his duties when the head of his own police force showed such vehement opposition to his brave attempts to expose corruption.

And yet that was nothing compared to the allegations circulating in the background. He would have known nothing of them at the time.

You can imagine the informal briefings which are so central to Irish political life. “Did you hear the rumour about so-and-so?” “Don’t trust so-and-so. Sure, have you not heard about the file . . . “

Sgt Maurice McCabe: an honest whistleblower who
was the subject of malicious (and false) smears

All Maurice McCabe wanted was truth and justice – instead, he was the victim of a truly appalling smear by those who wield power in Irish society.

But for a mistake by a member of staff at the child protection agency, who contacted him in error about the “wrong” file, he might never have known about the vicious rumours circulating behind his back.

He was being punished for breaking the unwritten rules of Irish life.

This, after all, is the country in which you ring a politician in a bid to move up the lengthy waiting list for a local authority house.

It’s the land in which a TD or Senator will pressurise a surgeon to move you up the waiting list if you urgently need surgery and the waiting lists last for months or even years.

It’s the country where the right connections will allow you to evade penalty points if you know the right Garda and you are in a position of power.

Bending the rules is part of our heritage.

Perhaps it goes back to our colonial days. With a wink and a nudge, Irish people learned how to work their way around inconvenient or “tricky” laws. Sure, they weren’t our laws.

They were imposed by the British after all. We had a grudging admiration for law-breakers under the British Empire and we exported that rebellious spirit to the US and Australia.

But there’s a huge difference between opposing unjust laws and smearing a good policeman who only wanted to do his job.

Over a decade has passed since McCabe first raised concerns about corruption in the Gardai and it’s impossible to imagine the anguish he has gone through since then.

The realisation that some people – with the right connections –  have been able to act as they please while evading the consequences should make us all fearful for Irish democracy.

There are too many coincidences in the Maurice McCabe case to suggest anything other than a deliberate and malicious campaign to discredit and disgrace a good man.

If a Garda whose only crime is to expose corruption can be maliciously and falsely branded as a sex abuser, what does that say about power and democracy in 21st century Ireland?


Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and content writer, based in Galway, Ireland. You can check out his Facebook page here

Check out Ciaran's website: http://ciarantierney.com/

Find Ciaran on Twitter, @ciarantierney

A blog post about media ownership in Ireland, from July 2016  http://ciarantierney.blogspot.ie/2016/07/the-silence-is-deafening.html