Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

The Minister, in his long-winded reply, particularly criticised the Labour Party for drawing attention to the fact that one of his amendments would provide for the Government to have the facilities to inspect every file the Garda Commissioner had under its jurisdiction without condition. Amendment No. 128b states: "... includes the duty to provide on request by the Secretary General, any document in the power or control of the Garda Síochána, including material in the form of Garda records, statements made by members of the Garda Síochána and by other persons and reports". Therefore, any files or surveillance records could be requested through the Secretary General but it must be remembered that the Secretary General is just the messenger for the Minister. This is access on demand.

I have no doubt that what the Minister is trying to do is get away from the problem highlighted in the Dáil last night and again last Friday where he was unable to get possession of the Carty report for two years, from 2000 to 2002, and the Garda Commissioner, in conjunction with the Director of Public Prosecutions, for matters of privacy because there would have been proceedings in regard to the matter, determined to hold on to the report, or at least that is his version. The then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, said he had the report all the time. There is a dichotomy that we will have to try to square at some point in the future.

Under that amendment there is an unconditional entitlement for the Minister to have access to the files of any person in this country on request through his messenger, the Secretary General. That is not good enough. The Minister is taking the sledge-hammer approach to dealing with the matter, which will cause more problems. It should be remembered that a former Minister for Justice was bugging people and breaking the law in the process. Another former Minister for Justice has just been released from jail for serious transgressions.

See this speech in context