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

I am very happy to address all the issues the Deputy raised. There is a series of assertions that, if I ignore them, it would be quite inappropriate because they would be left hanging in the air. The first question the Deputy raised was: why did I so quickly say there was no Garda involvement for the alleged bugging? I did not, quickly, do anything. What I did was recite what GSOC told me, what Mr. Kieran FitzGerald said on "Prime Time". The answer was, "There is no evidence of Garda misconduct". If there was evidence of Garda misconduct I would say so.

Kieran FitzGerald said on "Prime Time" that there has been a lot of finger pointing at the Garda but there was no basis for it. GSOC carried out the investigation and stated that it found nothing. I did not rush out to say anything. I was not acting as some sort of arbiter or referee between the Garda and GSOC. I was simply reporting to the House what I was told. It did not matter what GSOC concluded on this issue, because we have had a week of allegations that the Garda must have had GSOC under surveillance, despite GSOC stating that there is no evidence it was under surveillance. These assertions by people have continued into this evening. People say they are standing behind GSOC and they want a body that independently investigates things, and then question the conclusions that GSOC has made, and they target me for saying something dreadful by simply repeating the conclusions-----