Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I would have nakedly done it. However, a Secretary General of a Department, particularly of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who is the senior civil servant concerned with the security of the State, is not a messenger boy of the Minister. He is an Accounting Officer and departmental head and is not in a position to be directed by the Minister to exercise a solemn statutory duty, such as is given here, in bad faith on the Minister's account.

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