Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish to travel over ground which has been comprehensively covered by my colleagues. Last Wednesday, after two weeks of uncharacteristic silence during which he studiously avoided the media, the Minister addressed the House on two occasions. He devoted a great deal of his first speech to lavishing praise on the former Garda Commissioner, the very man he had colluded with the Taoiseach to shaft the day previously to save his skin. He then provided statistics on the fight against crime, fraud prosecutions, gangland operations, theft, murder, etc., all of which were very interesting, except that we could have obtained them with a few clicks of a mouse.

What the Minister told us was dwarfed by what he did not tell us. He did not speak a word about the confidential recipient, Mr. Oliver Connolly, and whether he was speaking on his behalf when he threatened a whistleblower. He did not utter a word about the circumstances of the Secretary General's visit to the home of the Garda Commissioner or the reason the Attorney General sat on information for four months. He did say a word about when he was first consulted about a section 41 letter or the reason it took ten days to reach his desk.

This is the performance in relation to the most serious issues imaginable from a Government that promised a constitutional revolution. It is not a constitutional revolution or even a constitutional pitch fight, it is a constitutional storm in a tea cup. I have often wondered why if the Minister for Justice and Equality, who is being lauded as some sort of reforming hyperactive genius, is so brilliant everything he has touched in relation to the most critical aspect of the administration of his Department turned to dust. Why has everything turned into an omnishambles? Why, less than six weeks ago, did the Minister for Justice and Equality come into this House and, in my opinion, mislead it-----

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