THE MORRIS TRIBUNAL Report – Chapter 3 – The Making of the False Allegations
the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform was resisting a sworn public inquiry because he hoped to receive a full report from Assistant Commissioner Carty within the next short while that would deal with a lot of the issues raised by the McBrearty affair. In carrying the allegation to Deputy Howlin that the assistant commissioner was compromised, Mr. Giblin was clearly expecting Deputy Howlin to do something about it in the political arena. Insofar as he was aware of his client’s campaign and Deputies Howlin and Higgins’ support for a public inquiry, and that the facsimile had already been sent to Deputy Higgins, he must have understood that this material would be used to advance that cause politically: to demonstrate to the Minister that there were serious allegations levelled against Assistant Commissioner Carty, who was now compromised, and that the Carty investigation would never meet the case: he would have to convene a sworn public inquiry. 3.80.
By not informing Deputy Howlin about the facsimile and that it came from Mr. Frank McBrearty Senior; by suggesting that it came from a Garda based in Donegal; and by embellishing his account with material external to the facsimile, Mr. Giblin was giving an air of independence and authenticity to this information that it clearly did not deserve. He was not briefing Deputy Howlin on the full reality of the situation. What could have been presented as a very simple story, that Mr. Frank McBrearty Senior had received a letter anonymously in the post which he sent on to Deputy Jim Higgins and to his lawyer, Mr. Martin Giblin S.C., was transformed into a complex mix of rumour, hearsay and innuendo that was not linked with the document at all, and in the telling of which the facsimile was not even mentioned. By failing to report what was supposedly the new and urgent information contained in the facsimile accurately and fairly to Deputy Howlin and to furnish him with a copy of the facsimile and inform him that it was sent from Mr. Frank McBrearty Senior, Mr. Giblin erred and failed to maintain the integrity of the process that he had initiated with Deputy Howlin. The deputy was dependent on Mr. Giblin’s complete candour about these important matters. Instead he was primed with misleading and incomplete information that was given an entirely unwarranted aura of independence and authenticity because it came from a senior counsel.
3.81.
The Tribunal was not offered any reasonable explanation as to why Mr. Giblin handled the facsimile in this way. No explanation was offered for the heightened urgency in seeking a meeting with Deputy Howlin and then failing to draw his attention to the central document that gave rise
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