Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The complete report was not available to him. I presume the complete report was presented to the eminent person Shane Murphy once it was established at the end of 2001. Is it not quite unbelievable that volume of knowledge, the entire picture, was given to an independent person appointed by the Government but concealed from the law officer of the Government? That beggars belief.

This is an unmitigated litany of failure. This Minister as Attorney General was negligent in the extreme in not demanding the report, telling us that he screamed for it but did not get it and so gave advice with cloaked evidence and advised the Government to vote down a motion on the basis of partial evidence. It is a disgrace.

For the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform at the time to pretend to me that he had the report that he now says he did not have at all is unbelievable. He either misled the House or he is incompetent. Those are the plain facts on the points now being put to this House.

There is now patently a scramble to divide responsibility between the former Attorney General, now Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, and his immediate predecessor. We must know the truth, the facts and their sequencing. Either we give that task to Mr. Justice Morris or we set up a special committee of inquiry in this House and see if we are up to it.

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