Updated at 6.26pm
AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW of the Department of Justice published this afternoon has found that the organisation is driven by a “closed, secretive and silo driven culture” — leading to an announcement from the ministry’s Secretary General that he is to step aside from his position.
The review, published on the justice.ie website shortly before 4.30pm, was commissioned in the wake of the Guerin Report into claims of malpractice made by garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe.
Amongst the other top five issues highlighted by the review group were:
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald asked for the review to be carried out on the 3 June — in the wake of the report into McCabe’s claims by senior counsel Sean Guerin, which ultimately cost her predecessor, Alan Shatter, his job.
Chaired by CEO of the Dublin Airport Authority, Kevin Toland, it was tasked with examining Guerin’s concerns about how the Department is run, and with assessing the effectiveness of current management structures.
In a statement released shortly after the report’s publication, the Department said that Secretary General Brian Purcell had offered to be “reassigned” to elsewhere in the civil service.
The Minister thanked Purcell “for his contribution to the State” over the last 28 years; he has also worked as Director General of the Irish Prison Service, and was previously with the Department of Social Protection.
The six person group that carried out the review, which also included former Seattle Chief of Police Kathleen O’Toole, convened seven times between early June and mid-July, and met with over internal 20 staff members from the Department.
Three interviews were carried out with Purcell as part of that process.
It also interviewed 25 additional people, and received feedback and submissions from 30 staff.
Brian Purcell, pictured alongside former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and former Justice Minister Alan Shatter.
In the section of its report detailing what it described as “significant weaknesses” within the Department, the review group found the culture of the Department “to be closed and unnecessarily secretive (even taking into account the important and confidential nature of some of the work)“.
It found that this had resulted in “an inward looking organisation with limited learning capacity and reduced openness to new ideas“.
…the Review Group found that although there has been a challenging expansion of work, the overall Departmental culture has not changed or adapted to the world in which it now operates.
The culture of confidentiality in the Department’s dealings with An Garda Síochána has influenced the leadership style, management practices and relationships with other agencies.
The need for secrecy in particularly sensitive areas has not been restricted to those areas. It permeates much of the Department’s remit and has become part of its DNA, to the detriment of other areas that should be open.
Management
These shortcomings led to a number of serious failures recently, the report concluded, particularly in the Garda Division of the Department “regarding how briefings between the Minister and senior management were handled“.
The failings are summarised as follows:
Communications
There is “no coherent, structured communications strategy” within the Department of Justice, the report concluded.
In addition “the communications area is inadequately resourced” the panel found, and “there would appear to have been inadequate constructive relationships” with the media, which it says are…
…vital in a world where the pace and nature of media interactions are growing exponentially.
Technology
In a conclusion which perhaps shines some light on why’s Martin Callinan’s letter to Alan Shatter about the taping of phonecalls at garda stations didn’t get to the Minister for two weeks, the report states:
Minister Fitzgerald speaks to the media this evening.
The independent review makes a number of recommendations, and says the Department should start by…
…focusing on changing closed and secretive cultural model to being as open and inclusive as possible considering appropriate confidentiality…
It says a change in “leadership and management routines” needs to happen and that there needs to be a more “structured approach to how agencies and key relationships are managed” in order to hold them more accountable.
Speaking this evening, Minister Fitzgerald said she had confidence in the current staff in her department to implement the recommendations of the report.
Additional reporting Hugh O’Connell & Nicky Ryan.
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