Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Commissioner is very welcome and I thank him for coming in. I find the answers he has given to the two main points Deputy Deasy raised - the two areas currently in the news - somewhat difficult to accept. Maybe he could explain it to me. Of the two inquiries we are discussing, one was held into the points system and the quashing of points, while the other was held by the Ombudsman into the activities of the Garda in the case of a drug trafficking informant. They came up with staggeringly different results. The inquiry the Garda held into the points system pretty well gives its guys a clean bill of health. The inquiry held by the Ombudsman is a devastating indictment of the activities of the gardaí in the drug trafficking informant case. One was independent and the other was not.

I wonder what would have happened if the GSOC had investigated the penalty points system and the Garda had investigated the drug trafficker issue because Mr. Callinan has rubbished that report and said it is wrong. Some of us have serious reservations about the fact that the Garda held a non-independent internal investigation into serious allegations. Why did Mr. Callinan not invite an independent body to investigate the penalty points allegations and why he did not interview many of those making the allegations?