Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Will he meet the other whistleblowers? This is a question of the way business is done in this State. It predates this Government. There is a cosy relationship between the political elites and those who are at the top of State agencies, the Civil Service and big businesses. We have seen so many examples of that recently. People are sick of it. They listened to what the Taoiseach and the Labour Party said during the general election campaign about the need for a new way of doing these things. This is the old way of doing them.

What happened over GSOC? There was to be a review. What is happening now? A senior counsel is being brought in to do a review. A process is provided for under the Commissions of Investigations Act 2004, which gives the Taoiseach this authority. I am not asking him to make a judgment - I understand that is not within his authority. I understand the separation of these different agencies and so on. There is a process which takes it out of politics. That is the Commissions of Investigations Act 2004. That is where it should have gone. Perhaps we will go there if that becomes the recommendation, but why wait when people are hurting? The whole political and public narrative for the last number of weeks has been totally monopolised by this issue, so why not free it up? Why not do the big thing and let that investigation proceed as it is to under the 2004 Act?

It was put in place to deal with issues such as those the Taoiseach has just articulated.

Let us play catch-up with the North on some of these issues. It is not acceptable for a Garda Commissioner to be accountable to any politician. There should be an independent Garda authority. I welcome that the Protected Disclosures Bill is to be changed. Sinn Féin, through Deputy Mac Lochlainn, has argued for that. We are now giving gardaí the right to go to the Ombudsman, which is a very basic and modest step. However, there is no protection for whistleblowers, and the very person who should have protected the whistleblower, the Minister for Justice and Equality, failed to do that. I hope this goes well, particularly for the families who have been hurt, and we will certainly give it a fair wind.

I return to what I asked in my original question. The Taoiseach had this for less than a week and he moved to take this action. The Minister had it for two years. The allegations have been about since 2008 in the various agencies to which this garda was entitled go. This is a step and it is positive enough, but it is too small a step and falls short of what the public wants if confidence is to be restored.

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