Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

I want to return to the matter of Garda conduct in Donegal and the Carty report which was completed and submitted in July 2000. This was a report by a senior policeman into the awful, appalling, unbelievable and bizarre allegations surrounding the conduct and performance of the Garda in Donegal.

In November 2001, the Government voted down a joint motion in the name of my Labour Party colleague, Deputy Howlin, and former Deputy Jim Higgins of Fine Gael seeking an inquiry into what was going on in Donegal. Last Friday, we learned from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, that the Taoiseach did not have the Carty report. He said the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, and he, as Attorney General, did not get the report until January or February 2002. This is the same man who tried to say that Nora Owen and the rainbow coalition were responsible for what happened in Donegal. He now says he and the then Minister did not get the report until the beginning of 2002.

In February 2001, when Deputy Howlin tabled a question expressly on the Carty report and its findings and what he intended to do with it, the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, led him to believe that he had received the Carty report and that, by extension, it did not bear out the character of allegations being made about Garda activities in Donegal. The import of the then Minister's statement meant he not only misled the House but that he communicated, as a result of giving the impression he had the Carty report and was taking no action, that the allegations were baseless or exaggerated. Will the Taoiseach defend the actions of the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform?

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