Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

——and the Parliament and the Minister is a matter of constitutional importance. Those Deputies — they are in a minority — who believe there should be an independent police authority ignore completely the consequence of establishing such a body, the greatest of which would be that there would be virtually no parliamentary accountability. A Minister could and would easily stand up and say to his colleagues in the House that it was their decision, not his, and that they, rather than he, should be asked why they did it.

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