Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

People watching this now will be aware that a civil servant was involved in investigating a number of very serious allegations, created a witness statement and provided that witness statement to the Department. Under the Minister's management, the Department seems to have decided before the document was researched that there was nothing in it worth delivering and that it did not deserve the resources to expedite it and give it to the Garda. How could any of those decisions have been made at the start? Give that there are allegations that all of this was part of political obstruction, surely it would have been part of the prioritisation of a Minister to ensure that, first, it was researched and, second, it was passed on as soon as possible.

While there has been a reduction in staff at the Department, there were still 800 people in the Department carrying out a range of responsibilities. Why did the Minister not prioritise it at the start? How could any determination regarding prioritisation or relevance be determined before it was researched?