Tracing a Leak

Mick McCaffrey was arrested yesterday. He is a journalist with the Sunday Tribune, but his troubles began with his previous employment, at the Evening Herald.

A member of An Garda Siochana, a detective sergeant who has not yet been named, was also arrested.

The Garda isn't saying much about their employee, but the National Union of Journalists is in an uproar. It's a matter of leaks, and who said what to whom and who dared to write the story.

Ten years ago, two psychiatric patients were murdered in their beds, and a junkie somehow confessed to the crime. As it turned out, he did not commit the murder, nor could he have, and the Commission of Investigation did their investigating to find out how the Garda could have gotten it so wrong and sent an innocent man to prison.

As it is against the law to reveal the contents of a draft report before the report is published officially, Mr. McCaffrey is in a boatload of trouble. As the one who put the story out there last August in the Evening Herald, he's the one facing jail time. The Garda sergeant is only in trouble for leaking the story, apparently, although no one has said anything on the record. It does seem to follow quite nicely with the overall scheme, however, as why else would an officer of the law be hauled into the Blackrock Garda Station?

Minister for Justice Michael McDowell is notorious for spilling the random drop from the secrets jar, and Sunday Tribune editor Noreen Hegarty is pointing a finger at himself, suggesting that the Big Leaker shouldn't be prosecuting a journalist when he's used them to his advantage. She finds it ironic, but there's another term that might better suit.

The idea of running down the messenger and throwing him in jail, blaming him for the bad news, smacks of cynical self-interest. It was the Garda sergeant who provided the fodder for the news article, and he's the one who should pay the price for slipping a copy of the report out of headquarters. Mick McCaffrey isn't the one who coerced a homeless junkie into a false confession. But heaven forbid that the people of Ireland find out something negative about the guards, that they should be made to harbor a doubt about the integrity of the force.

Freedom of the press, but not too much freedom if you please.