Commissioner Callinan's stance needs clarifaction.

The standoff between the Gardai top brass and the Public Accounts Committee over the discretion of the Gardai to forgive penalty points made riveting viewing,Certainly the Commissioner put it up to Parliament,effectively telling them to butt out of his area of responsibility.My guess is that Fine Gael,as the party of law and order will see to it that the matter is buried .Enda would know that while he might get away with demonising Catholicism ,taking on the Gardai is a kettle of a different colour.
However what really perplexed me is the distaste the Commissioner forcibly expressed for the actions of those bringing the information to public attention.He expressed the view that their actions was "disgusting."
Now to my mind the borderlines between whistle blowers,informers and the action of good citizens in supplying information to the relevant authorities is extremely blurred.
Social Welfare,Customs,Revenue generally and the Gardai amongst a host of others are continuously advertising for citizens to report any suspicious activities to the authorities.And count it as a success if the numbers of such reports increase year on year.
I would say that in none of these instances would the  crime be already proven in Court.Rather what would be reported would be the informer's belief that the behaviour complained of could constitute criminal or wrong behaviour.
Many Irish people have an inbuilt revulsion of informers ,mainly I suspect because of the propensity of so many informers in the past to report on their neighbours and colleagues to the Brits when they ruled the roost here.(Which may be a reason in why Ruairi Quinn wants to decommission the study of history in our schools)
I figure myself that the act of informing runs in families and is passed from generation to generation but have no scientific proof of this.It sure would make an interesting study for some academic.
Anyhow the point is that the Commissioner may have been talking from his  genetic Irish gut when he described the behaviour of the whistle blowers as disgusting.
Today the memorial service of Detective O Donoghue of Lordship  was widely publicised and that of his horrific murder .The Gardai are pleading for information on his killers.They want informers to blow the whistle on the perpetrators.
I would guess that the Gardai,Revenue and Social Welfare are hugely grateful to the Good Citizen Reports they receive and that it forms a considerable part of its investigative armour.
The Commissioner would want to clarify his position on these matters and be consistent,in my humble view.