Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 December 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons
Chapter 7 – Catering and Ancillary Services in Prisons

11:30 am

Photo of Marc MacSharryMarc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will the witnesses provide the Vice Chairman the advice they have from the Attorney General which advised them to come in and stonewall, which is what they are doing and have done to Deputy Munster? They said they cannot answer this and cannot satisfactorily answer that. There is a procedure for everything but what happens is that Deputies, who would be better employed doing constituency work and pursuing policy, are in here to pursue matters of public interest and the interests of the taxpayer.

I raised an issue two years ago. There was a court judgment on the issue that said on the direct result of it being raised in this room, someone was penalised and thrown under the bus. All these matters are in the public domain. What we have here is the Secretary General of a Department coming in and saying that there is nothing to see here and that we cannot talk about this. This is totally unacceptable. It is a circling of the wagons and it is most disgusting. We are talking about a case of sexual harassment against a female working as an agency nurse under the auspices of the Irish Prison Service that, according to the court ruling, was thrown under the bus the very day it was raised here. At this stage I want to put on record that-----

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