A senior garda is facing investigation over the leaking of information to RTÉ following an incident in which Joan Burton was blockaded by water protesters.

*Labour’s Joan Burton was left stranded in her car by protest. Photo: Frank McGrath*

An internal Garda investigation was launched after RTÉ broadcast details of charges against 20 people arising from the incident outside a community centre in Tallaght in November 2014.

During the protest the then Labour leader had to sit in her official car for two hours as it was surrounded by protesters.

The news report by RTÉ crime correspondent Paul Reynolds led to a complaint by Socialist TD Paul Murphy to the gardaí, the Garda Ombudsman and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

In a news report on August 12 last year, Mr Reynolds gave details of expected arrests and court appearances.

The report contained information about the total number of arrests due, the number and type of files sent by the Garda to the DPP, and that the accused were due to appear in court in the coming days. The report also contained information that the DPP had recommended charges in files returned to the garda investigators. The cases are before the courts.

Mr Murphy later said the information could only have come from the DPP or gardaí and he had "written to the appropriate authorities in both seeking to establish what investigations will be carried out to determine the source of the leak".

Two senior officers from outside Dublin were given the task of heading the investigation of Deputy Murphy's complaint.

The investigation into the RTÉ report involved the checking of mobile phone records from, and to, the journalist.

The garda press office said: "An investigation into how this information appeared in the media was launched on the Thursday 13th August, 2015. This investigation is ongoing." RTÉ said it did not wish to comment on an "ongoing garda investigation'"

It is one of a series being carried out by gardaí into alleged leaks. In May last year Superintendent Dave Taylor, the former head of the Garda Press Office under the previous Commissioner Martin Callinan, was arrested and suspended from duty on severely reduced salary.

A file was prepared for the DPP arising out of the investigation into Supt Taylor which was headed by Superintendent Jim McGowan, Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan's husband. Ms O'Sullivan has stated she saw no conflict of interest in this.

It is understood that the file prepared by Supt McGowan's team and sent to the DPP alleging "unlawful" disclosure of information to journalists has been returned to the Garda after the DPP decided there was no evidence on which to base any charge.

The piece of legislation under which Supt Taylor was arrested and detained for several hours n is Section 62 of the 2005 Garda Síochána Act. The legislation provides for up to seven years imprisonment and or a €75,000 fine for 'unlawful disclosure' of information.

It had only been used in one previous case against a garda who exposed an attempt by former Green Party TD Trevor Sargent over his intervention in a prosecution in his north Dublin constituency. Mr Sargent subsequently resigned in February 2010. A garda was arrested, questioned and a file sent to the DPP who directed no charges be brought.

Original article; Jim Cusack, Irish Independent, June 15, 2016

Article by Eamonn Delaney Irish Independent Jan 29, 2016

Richard Boyd Barrett, Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy at the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit launch of a common principles document. Photo: Photo: RollingNews.ie

Never mind the mini-drama of who might dance with Michael Lowry in a future coalition. The real drama building up this week is the prospect of grand alliance of the left and who will dance with Sinn Féin. This is not so much because of its former paramilitary association - which is usually the objection of the bigger, more 'bourgeois' parties.

Of course, Coppinger and Murphy are right about Sinn Féin's essentially tribal politics, but many who would support such an alliance would consider that to be a rather rarefied reservation, given that what is on offer is the serious prospect of a grand left alignment, and one that would be much more radical than anything a shrunken Labour Party could provide. And it could really shake up the establishment.

As it is, almost all of the left already participate in the Right2Change campaign and Sinn Féin would say that the reluctance of Murphy and Coppinger to fully come on board has as much to do with their electoral rivalry with Sinn Féin in Dublin.

Remember, Murphy pipped Sinn Féin for a Dublin South West seat after it looked like Sinn Féin was wobbling on water charges.

In fairness, there was always going to be differences between all these left-wing elements, given their different historical origins, but if Sinn Féin could put something big together, it'd be hard to see Coppinger and others resisting. After all, they have almost exactly the same policies - for the moment.

And this is possibly the real crux. The harder left see Sinn Féin as a potential sell-out and an eventual bourgeois party, many of whose members would actually share power with Fianna Fáil.

Again, it was Coppinger and Paul Murphy who have described Sinn Féin as not a socialist party at all but a populist nationalist one, which in the North has in the past implemented austerity measures. Also, some of the hard left's policies announced this week, such as raising Ireland's much cherished low corporate tax to 15pc, might be a step too far for Sinn Féin.

The blunt reality is that the prospect of being in power on both sides of the border for the centenary of 1916 would be too exciting a prospect for more mainstream Republicans to resist sharing power with, say, Fianna Fáil.

After all, they are already sharing power with the DUP in the North, and can thus get their hands on the levers at Stormont. And surely if you can coalesce with Paisley's Unionists, you can coalesce with anyone. There is also the frank reality that Sinn Féin wants to be a mainstream political party, appealing eventually to the middle classes and building a truly national movement that is fresh and non-corrupt and re-ignites the values of the 1916 revolution. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But the left will be thinking of something quite different and would be closer to the ideals of the 1913 Dublin Lockout.

And they are prepared to forgo the broader political participation or imagery of power, for specific, strategic results.

So it's a fascinating dance. Throw in the attention-seeking Brendan Ogle and you've got a further recipe for unpredictability.

However, if such an alliance did happen, it could create a whole new power bloc, which would be a real magnet for protest politics, the hard left and radical nationalists.

It could also draw in left-wing independents such as Tommy Broughan or even John Halligan and Finian McGrath, who are surely out of sorts in the Shane Ross group of Independents.

But as it is, an alliance starring Mary Lou McDonald, Richard Boyd Barrett, Ruth Coppinger and Paul Murphy could be real box-office stuff, and would for the first time create a proper left-right divide in Irish politics.