Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Now, they are being independently examined. We are now dealing with an issue of great seriousness relating to taping with within An Garda Síochána and the recording of telephone calls. I find it extraordinary that the main focus of attention on this issue has been overwhelmingly on the fact that officials in the Department of Justice and Equality failed to give me a letter received from the Garda Commissioner on Monday, 10 March 2014 and that I did not receive it until 25 March 2014. What purpose would there be, if I had received it any earlier, in concealing that fact? What purpose would there have been to do nothing about it? Do the Deputies opposite think anyone in this House wished yet another area of difficulty to arise in respect of an An Garda Síochána? Do they think there was any interest in not addressing issues when they first arose? Of course there was not. However, what Members opposite are deliberately doing to distract from the real issues is focusing on process as opposed to substance. What they are doing is creating a distraction from the reality that this was a problem created many years ago. The issue of taping of telephone conversations, the recording of telephone conversations and the background circumstances, none of which is fully clear yet, first occurred some 25 to 30 years ago. The last occasion when the system was apparently upgraded was 2008. No Members opposite want to say that there was a problem during their time in government.

What are we doing? What we have done is that as soon as the problem became fully identified we agreed to a statutory inquiry being put in place. I find it strange as someone deeply interested in human rights and constitutional law that the focus is on the particular minute when someone got a letter. Why is that not as important as the Deputies opposite believe it to be? Why? It is because apparently whatever was happening in this area was stopped in November 2013. Why is it important that we get to know what it is about? It is because this substantially has the potential - I am saying "potential" because I have no wish to prejudge the statutory inquiry - to have been a serious invasion of citizens' rights to privacy. Clearly, there is an issue relating to whether data protection legislation was violated. There is an issue surrounding the legality of the taping and recording of calls. For example, we do not know whether on some occasions conversations between lawyers and their clients were recorded. We do not know whether data was accessed if that ever happened. I cannot say definitively that it happened. We do not know whether there is on those tapes information of crucial importance and relevance to criminal prosecutions long since completed or to new prosecutions pending. We do not know, beyond one particular important set of civil proceedings, whether there could be information of relevance to litigants currently before the courts or before the courts in times past.

One serious issue in this context is the need to ensure that the rights to privacy of our citizens are protected, that the Garda always operates within the law, that there is appropriate oversight in this area and that we get to the true story. Is it the rights of citizens, the rights to privacy or the substantive issues that Members opposite have been talking about? We had Leaders' Questions in the House today. On what did the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin focus? They said they did not believe that I, the Minister, did not get the letter on 10 March until the date when I actually received it, which was the Tuesday, which, from recollection, was 25 March. The Secretary General of my Department has issued a statement this evening confirming the truth of that. It should not have occurred and he would be the first to acknowledge it, but that is not the central issue. Why is that issue pursued?

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