Who wasn't bugging GSOC

[tazdedub]

That or McCabe is the most unfortunate person in the country. I wouldn’t buy a raffle ticket off him with his luck.

[flattythehurdler]

The corruption and venality of this wouldn’t be out of place in LA confidential.
The gardai and and state and what passes for social services have a long and venerable history of collusion and corruption as we all know. It’s appalling.
It would be funny in this instance, the poverty of the excuses, if it weren’t so damn serious.

[Julio_Geordio]

@artfoley

Any maths nerd want to try and figure out the statistical likelihood of all these coincidences going against McCabe?

Perhaps @Rocko could write a script to calculate it. Has to be in the region of trillions to one

List up the coincidences there and I’ll add them to the below.

@Julio_Geordio

In simple probability terms. Let’s say the child protection service is racked with errors which it would seem is the case and the chance of them making a fuck up on a file is 1/5 which you’d hope is way off.
Now they’ve made conservatively three fucks up here which are independent of each other, not properly investigating it, saying they didn’t have a file on it when they obviously did, and then making a mistake on the file when the allegation resurfaced. Your already at a 125/1 shot of 3 errors being made on the same case at different stages, by different people (presumably) with regard to the same man.
Add in the odds of an allegation resurfacing in the middle of said person making a complaint against the gardai…
Like he won a bad luck lotto

[artfoley]

@Julio_Geordio

List up the coincidences there and I’ll add them to the below.

Good man Julio. Give me a few minutes and I’ll collate them

[tazdedub]

Can’t wait to see this now. I mean the odds must be astronomical that of all the files in Tulsa that the one file they would accidentally fuck up would be McCabes.

This brings on another question is how many files of other people have been fucked up in the same way but haven’t come to light or is there someone sitting in a jail cell serving a sentence for something he didn’t do because some gobshite down the Tulsa office accidentally copied and pasted the wrong allegations in to the wrong file or the mis-spelled a name.

[artfoley]

@Julio_Geordio

This is just a quick rough draft and I’ve 20 coincidences involving around 11 different people/agencies. I’d say the number of I did it properly would be in the 40s

2006
January:

Sgt Maurice McCabe makes complaint against a garda colleague which ends up with the officer being disciplined.

December: coincidence 1

A garda makes a complaint against Sgt McCabe, alleging he rubbed up against a six-year-old girl inappropriately while playing hide and seek with his children. Sgt McCabe asks that the complaint be fully investigated. The DPP finds the allegation was without foundation.

2013

May:

Penalty report by assistant commissioner John O’Mahony is published. It finds there may have been a breach of rules. In reply, the then Garda commissioner Martin Callinan said that “no evidence has been found to suggest any criminality in the cancellation of fixed charge notices”.

August: coincidence 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

A garda and Tusla are contacted by a counsellor, making them aware of a child abuse allegation against a garda. The garda in question is Sgt McCabe. The alleged victim is the same woman who made the claim in 2006. A file is sent to Bailieboro Station on the basis that this is his local station. However, he had not worked there since 2008. Counsellor doesn’t check previous file for consistency

Series of articles appear in indo about the alleged assault and how complainant was denied justice. Counsellor doesn’t read news and doesn’t know Maurice mccabe was whistle blower

2014

April: coincidence 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

The Child and Family Agency (later to become Tusla) opens files on Sgt McCabe and his family alleging sexual abuse. Doesn’t check previous file. Doesn’t contact mccabe . social worker in relationship with garda in monaghan station and doesn’t know Maurice mccabe was whistleblower. Social workers don’t check previous file. Email is sent to manager in CFA and he doesn’t open the attached letter

May: coincidence 17, 18,

Counsellor contacts Tusla to say allegation of digital penetration in McCabe file have been ‘copied and pasted’ in error. Garda are notified of the error by Tusla. superintendent doesn’t read letter

June: coincidence 19

A meeting is scheduled between the local superintendent and an assistant Garda commissioner. However, the meeting did not take place, according to gardaí.

Coincidence 20

2015: mccabe is told for first time about new allegations

[Julio_Geordio]

@artfoley

2006
January:

Sgt Maurice McCabe makes complaint against a garda colleague which ends up with the officer being disciplined.

December: coincidence 1

A garda makes a complaint against Sgt McCabe, alleging he rubbed up against a six-year-old girl inappropriately while playing hide and seek with his children. Sgt McCabe asks that the complaint be fully investigated. The DPP finds the allegation was without foundation.

The chances of a whistle blower Garda (lets say there’s 1 whistle blower for every 50 Gardai, which is well on the high side) being under investigation by Tusla (we can only hope that there are less than 1 in every 100 gardai being investigated by Tusla but we’ll go with that) would be 1 in 5,000. However that assumes that it’s a coincidence that he’s both a whistle blower and under investigation which even the Gardai would accept isn’t a coincidence at this stage. So his chances of being a whistle blower and being investigated by Tusla are 1/1. Related events in bookmakers parlance.
No point taking into account the chances that he is a whistle blower, as that has already happened. So chances so far are 1/1.

@artfoley

A garda and Tusla are contacted by a counsellor, making them aware of a child abuse allegation against a garda. The garda in question is Sgt McCabe. The alleged victim is the same woman who made the claim in 2006. A file is sent to Bailieboro Station on the basis that this is his local station. However, he had not worked there since 2008. Counsellor doesn’t check previous file for consistency

Ok. Difficult to put a value on this, as again a lot of it is a related event, the Tusla investigation because he is a whistle blower etc. etc.

I don’t think at this point the fact that false allegations were made against him is up for debate, it’s more what are the chances that the investigation could be botched so badly after the second allegation.
There are at least 10 independent mistakes made between Tusla, Gardai and Rian. At least ten, there are a good few more but some could be seen as related to previous mistakes etc. therefore we’ll leave it at the nice round even number of 10. I’d previously assumed that 1/5 for a mistake was a fair metric. At that level the chances of 10 individual errors being made on the one case are over 9.75m to 1. However it seems like the place was racked with errors so lets revise it down to 1/3 chance for each error we get in excess of 59,000/1.

However one of the errors in the case is so grievous that it could only amount to criminal negligence. That is not meeting him, following up on the investigation or informing him of the investigation in spite of the fact that he was the fucking child protection officer!!! I’m assuming errors of this magnitude are much rarer lets say 1/20 (please God it’s a lot less). Now you are looking at 39m to 1 if errors are 1/5 and 393,000 to one if they are 1 in 3.

It’s not that much of a coincidence of one of them being married to a Guard. Guards always marry nurses, civil servants etc. they could have met on the job. I’d say 1/5 chance. Now we’re up in lotto odds territory.

Add in the fact that the problems resurfaced in the middle of the whistle blower investigation lets say generously 1/5 again.

As for the laughable idea that they were unaware of McCabes profile in the media at the time or that they never discussed it at any stage

Now we’re in Euromillions territory and beyond. And that’s being kind and without covering half of it.

It’s all so obviously bullshit. But they are doing well to keep shtum, their answers are short and sweet, I don’t remember, not that I can recall etc. All easy to go back on. Well coached in advance you’d think. Need one of them to break ranks and it’ll all come tumbling down on top of them. Not sure why they are all putting their necks on the line for each other.

[flattythehurdler]

Put a foot in the swamp and it’s hard to get out.

[Little_Lord_Fauntleroy]

@flattythehurdler

Put a foot in the swamp and it’s hard to get out.

[mikehunt]

What would Transparency International make of all this? I’d say they’d put it down to coincidence.

cc @Tim_Riggins

[Tim_Riggins]

I would say they have a bigger worldview than a Muldoon from Limerick whose height of reading is Fintan O’Toole.

Scandal and corruption are a daily occurrence in most western democracies.

[mikehunt]

So basically they’d ignore rampant corruption across state bodies to discredit a whistle-blower when coming to a decision on how corrupt a country is? No wonder we passed with flying colours. Good work with locating sources to back up misleading stats kiddo.

[Tim_Riggins]

No they wouldn’t. It’s just that you don’t seem to get that corruption exists in other countries too.

Your view is that Ireland is an awful place. You’re a glass half full person on every issue. Grow up and see a bit of the world.

[mikehunt]

@Tim_Riggins

No they wouldn’t. It’s just that you don’t seem to get that corruption exists in other countries too.

Ah sure everyone else does it, and you call me a mulldoon?

[Horsebox]

I think @artfoley said they can be charged with bringing the tribunal into disrepute? Not sure what the consequences for that would be but they must be held to account. The judge should call them 1 by 1, read out this list of “coincidences” and then ask them if they stand by their statements. And if they do, charge them. One of them might decide to break. Won’t happen though. I’ve deliberately avoided reading up on this as it boils my blood but when it’s put as starkly as that, it is infuriating.

[gilgamboa]

@mikehunt

Ah sure everyone else does it, and you call me a mulldoon?

So you admit everyone else does it? No one is arguing that there is no corruption here. Just you argue we are worse than everywhere

[Tim_Riggins]

He argues that Ireland is the worst on everything. First to post bad news but never posting anything good. I wonder who he voted for in the last election as he just seems like a crank hurler on the ditch.

[Matty_Hislop]

@Tim_Riggins

Scandal and corruption are a daily occurrence in most western democracies.

You’ve got a very laissez faire attitude towards institutional corruption in Oireland Tim.

[Tim_Riggins]

I don’t.

We should always improve and target anyone at it. But we should have a bit of perspective about the world.’

[mikehunt]

@gilgamboa

So you admit everyone else does it? No one is arguing that there is no corruption here. Just you argue we are worse than everywhere

No, that’s what Tim says.