The High Court has ordered the disclosure of a number of statements from a Garda investigation file in a civil case brought by a Garda who alleges he was bullied and harassed by a colleague. It upheld privilege over the investigating officer’s report to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the DPP’s direction.
Mr Justice Barr’s judgment concerned a discovery dispute, not the trial of the underlying personal injuries action. The plaintiff seeks damages for alleged bullying and harassment by Sergeant D, and for the Garda authorities’ alleged failure to investigate his complaint adequately or promptly. The court made no findings on those claims.
The underlying dispute arose after the plaintiff and Sergeant D applied for the same rural station sergeant role, which went to Sergeant D. The plaintiff alleges she then humiliated and undermined him at work. He also alleges the authorities’ investigation upheld two of his ten complaints and rejected eight. Those are matters described in the judgment, not findings made in this discovery application.
The application concerned a Garda investigation into a separate complaint. In September 2013, the plaintiff and his wife received at home a 49-page document containing allegations about them. They complained to Gardaí about its delivery. The plaintiff does not seek damages in his civil action over that document or the handling of that criminal complaint. The DPP decided there would be no prosecution.
The defendants claimed litigation and public interest privilege over the investigation file. After inspecting it, the court rejected the claim to litigation privilege. It found the file had only very marginal relevance to the civil case, but concluded there was almost no public interest in withholding several items in the circumstances.
The court ordered production of statements by Garda Thomas Finnan, Superintendent Pat O’Connor, Sergeant Susan O’Brien, Sergeant Paul Lyons, Inspector Patrick O’Callaghan, Inspector Margaret Howard, Sergeant Hazel Delahunt, retired Inspector Bernard Barry, Garda Margaret Slevin, Linda Walsh, Reserve Garda Seamus O’Neill, Miriam Martin and Garda Tom Hanrahan. It also ordered production of an interview memo with Sergeant D and an email listed in the investigation file’s appendices.
It did not order production of statements by Sergeant Tom McCormack and Garda Siobhán Thornton because they were marked as awaited and were not in the file supplied to the court. If they have since come to hand, the defendants may decide whether to maintain privilege; the parties may return to court if needed.
The court upheld privilege over Inspector Patrick O’Callaghan’s report to the DPP, reasoning that investigators should be able to express views freely when submitting a file. It also said the DPP’s direction, dated 21 January 2015, should not be produced, although that direction was outside the scope of the application. The parties were given four weeks to submit written comments on the final order, costs and any other arising matters.