#DisclosuresTribunal Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness has resumed giving evidence. He's being questioned by Micheal O'Higgins SC, for the Commissioner, about the note he made following his meeting with Martin Callinan in the carpark on Jan 24 2014
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H asking why McG didn't make the note immediately (McG has already said he made it when he stopped on his way him from Dub to Kilkenny after he pulled over at a truck stop after meeting).
#DisclosuresTribunal McG says when you meet a Garda Comm in a car park and he sits in your car and tells you what McG says Call told him (that Sgt McCabe abused children) "you want to get the hell out of there"
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H: "On your case you agreed to meet Comm and you chose to do so w/o any official circumstances where, in your case, the Comm had already made a disgraceful remark (kiddy fiddler at PAC) the day before) Why in heavens were you now agreeing to meet the man?"
#DisclosuresTribunal McG: "If the Comm rang you, would you not meet him?" McG said he met Call out of respect for the gardai and for the Comm. Says he had something to impart to me. Says he brought no entrouage with him "This was a matter betwen me and the person I was meeting."
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H asking when McG told McCabe of the detail of the car park meeting? McG says it was around the time he made his Dail speech on May 26, 2016 broadsheet.ie/2016/05/27/we-… in which he first spoke publicly about the meeting. McG can't recall if it was before/after
#DisclosuresTribunal McG tells tribunal "Roughly in Feb of 2014, it was becoming clear that Maurice McCabe and his family were not in a position to take much more of this and I decided that what was said to me in that car park by the Comm was wrong, that it was there being..."
#DisclosuresTribunal McG: "...told to me to serve the purpose of ensuring that the PAC hearing would not go ahead [with McCabe] and I decided not to relay this story to him. I witnessed him being destroyed year on year..."
#DisclosuresTribuanl McG".. and when someone tells you a story, a fact to then, as vile as what I was told, it was even difficult for me to repeat it." Says he's sure he would have advised McCabe "in a factual way" about the car park meeting between Jan '14 and May 26 '16.
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H asks McG if he consulted his note before speaking to McG. He says he didn't, says: "I was living all of this right through... I had addressed the issues that were of concern to me." OH asks McG if he can look at McG's constituency notebook.
#DisclosuresTribunal McG says no problem and the constituency notebook (where the note is made) is handed to O'Higgins. McG mentions constituency matters are in the notebook but says he's sure O'H will ignore them.
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H now asks why the note is "squeezed" into a tight space and that he had to write sideways? McG gestures about how he wrote on the notebook when he sat in the driver's seat and when the notebook was on the passenger seat.
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H: "But you'd agree with me, it appears to be somewhat squeezed in?" McG: "No, there's plenty of room for it."
#DisclosuresTribunal O'Higgins, SC for the Commissioner, now asking why McGuinness didn't put the notebook on the steering wheel of the car to write down the note.
#DisclosuresTribunal McG goes into length about how he uses the notebook. Says: "It may not be professional or efficient but it's managed to get me elected over the years." McG is now being asked about the green ticks and blue markings that are visible on the notebook...|
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H suggests there was a lot of media attention after Dail speech (May 26, 2016). McG: "This might surprise you but I don't read much about what I say or do." Says he had experience in his career to lead him to conclude "life easier if I don't bother"
#DIsclosuresTribunal O'Higgins raises transcript of an interview McG gave to RTE's This Week on May 29 2016
#DisclosuresTribunal O'Higgins puts transcript aside. Asks McG to be specific about what he heard in Leinster House. McG: "The rumours had said Sgt McCabe had sexually abused people." McG said he asked McC and "he told me he was aware of the rumours &they were completely untrue"
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H suggests that presumably McCabe told McGuinness about the D case and the DPP's directions. McG: "I didn't ask that... all I wanted to know from him is that the rumours were not true.."
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H asks: "Did the rumour mill have it that there had been an investigation?" McG: "Not how I heard it..the rumour mill was that he sexually abused people and that he was a paedophile. That's what was being said generally about McC.
#DisclouresTribunal O'H: "Are you seriously suggesting Sgt McCabe didn't tell you about the outcome of the [Ms D] investigation?" McG: "I'm seriously telling the tribunal that he didn't tell me the outcome of an investigation."
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H returns to the This Week interview with Richard Crowley. At one point RC asks McG: "Just in terms of the [car park] meeting, did you record it or take notes or write out notes later of that meeting?" McG told RC: "No, no I did not."
#DisclosuresTribunal McG says he said "No" because "I did not record it and I did not write out the full notes of the meeting. What was written were the points I had to address and what RC was getting at was the detailed exchange." McG says that's how he took RC's question
#DisclosuresTribunal RTE transcript shows RC asked McG if he told anybody about the meeting and he said "no". Asked he he told his party leader Micheal Martin, he replied: "No, no I don't believe I did no" and went on to tell RC that he felt it was a matter btw him and McCabe
#DisclosuresTribunal O'Higgins suggests that the need for him to remain quiet about the car park meeting was no longer relevant after Jan 30 2014 (when Sgt McCabe went before PAC). McG says he "wasn't going to be used by Callinan".
#DisclosuresTribunal McG says matters Sgt McCabe was dealing with "didn't start and finish with the penalty points" and he felt to make the car park meeting publicly known "would further complicate all of those issues and also give truth to the rumours that had been circulated"
#DisclosuresTribunal It's recalled Micheal Martin gave dossier of allegations made by Sgt McCabe to then Taoiseach Enda Kenny in Feb 2014. McG says he went to thank MM at his office in Leinster House for raising this dossier in Dail and it was then he told MM of carpark meeting
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H: Was he shocked?. McG: I'm sure he was. O'H: Did you know by his demeanour? McG: Of course he was. O'H: Presumably he asked you more questions? McG: To my knowledge he didn't. I gave him this info to be helpful and the detail of meeting, I didn't go into
#DisclosuresTribunal McG has told the tribunal he didn't recall telling Micheal Martin until he saw MM's letter to the tribunal.
#DIsclosuresTribunal O'H again asks McG for his recollection of meeting with MM. McG: Let me be clear. I met the Comm, I met MM, I told him I met the Comm and I told him that the Comm had said that Maurice McCabe was invovled in sexual abuse or some words to that effect...
#DisclosuresTribunal McG adds: I do not believe that I went into more detail than that. McG has explained that there was a dividing line or "separation of interests" between his work as chair of the PAC and MM being the leader of his party
#DisclosuresTribunal O'H moves on to March 2014 when Fine Gael Transport Minister Leo Varadkar said the whistleblowers being "distinguished". O'H suggests that comment was "stealing the march". McG rejects this and says it was a "break for Maurice McCabe". Says LV was "brave"
