Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

The Taoiseach and Ceann Comhairle will recall a date in 1989 or 1990 when a predecessor of the former told the House that "no such meeting" had taken place. Now the Taoiseach is engaging in the same sort of semantic blather regarding the Carty report. The question from Deputy Howlin was whether the Minister had received the Carty report and what he proposed to do with it. The Minister led him to believe that he had received it and that, as a result of it apparently not bearing out the allegations made, he felt justified in shooting down any investigation, which was the advice from the then Attorney General.

It is entirely a matter of semantics whether it was a summary of the report or the report itself. What the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has said is that it was the report minus the appendices, which would have been the witnesses' statements. Regardless of whether it was a summary, partial, or full, Assistant Commissioner Carty's report would have borne out the gravamen of the allegations in Donegal. There is no doubt that it would have borne it out.

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