Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Plainly, the then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, was — I must find a phrase which will not run foul of the Ceann Comhairle — not giving the full story in truth to this House in May 2000, or he and the current Minister and the Taoiseach are not telling the truth now, because both answers cannot be true.

Why have we got two conflicting answers? If the Carty report was with the Minister and the Attorney General at the time of the Opposition motion to establish a sworn inquiry, if they had that information, they were clearly negligent in the extreme in voting down the motion.

The Minister, Deputy McDowell, is putting as much distance as he can between himself and the then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue. It is not difficult to establish such distance, since Deputy O'Donoghue has not presented himself at any discussion on these issues, apart from running out of the House last Friday after delivering a prepared script and without answering questions. He has made no contribution tonight.

Last Friday, the Minister, Deputy McDowell, told this House:

In May 2001, he [meaning the then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue] wrote to me in my capacity as Attorney General and asked me to advise him of his options in respect of establishing the facts by some process ... I replied to his letter and said I had not yet seen the Carty report and that I was labouring at a disadvantage on that account.

The extraordinary position now being canvassed by the Minister, Deputy McDowell, is that he was not in a position to advise the Government adequately regarding the establishment of an inquiry because the full facts were being withheld from him, the Government's chief law officer. If he had only known them, then to use his own words, it "would have enabled us to make an earlier judgment on some of the issues involved".

The essence of the Carty report was with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform from the summer of 2000. I do not know how much of its contents he shared with the then Attorney General, but it makes all the more grievous the wrong done by voting down the motion to establish the inquiry in November 2001. It also exposes the hypocrisy of the then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, when during that debate on 20 November 2001 on a motion to establish an independent sworn inquiry into all the allegations, he smugly announced himself to be gravely suspicious of the Opposition's motives in tabling the motion. Our motivation was the pursuit of truth, then and now. The motivation on that side of the House in voting down that motion is not clear.

Policing is an issue that should not divide this House. Good policing is a cornerstone of all our freedoms. The Labour Party knows and recognises the excellent, honourable and decent overwhelming majority of members who comprise an Garda Síochána. We also know our duty to our country, its citizens and its legislators, as we have done since the foundation of the State. When Progressive Democrats come and when they are gone, we will serve the people's interest.

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