Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I explain this to put in context what I now propose to say. The lawyers conducting the civil proceedings on my behalf repeatedly sought from me the full, factual matrix of the situation that was emerging in County Donegal. For reasons of the implementation of the doctrine that I have explained to the House, they were repeatedly kept away from it at that time. I have no doubt this was done in total good faith on the part of senior Garda management who believed themselves to be in privity with the Director of Public Prosecutions but it had the wholly unacceptable effect that the Carty report was not delivered in its entirety either to me or to the then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, at a time when its full contents would have been definitely of interest to us and would have enabled us to make earlier judgments on some of the issues involved.

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