Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

The current Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform spoke in the House last Friday about the report of the Morris tribunal. The Minister, Deputy McDowell, said that:

My job as Attorney General was to advise the Government and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and also to conduct the defence of those proceedings. In that context it was necessary for me to assess as best I could all the information that should have been available to me as the legal adviser to the Government and should have been available to the legal team, for which I was responsible, conducting the civil proceedings on behalf of the State. Repeatedly during the year 2000 and into 2001, the Office of the Attorney General sought from the Garda Síochána a clear statement of the facts, as they were known to the Garda Síochána, to enable it to conduct the defence of the civil proceedings. Even after the Carty report had been furnished to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Office of the Attorney General repeatedly sought sight of that report

I emphasise that the current Minister, Deputy McDowell, said last week that when he was Attorney General, he was deprived of the Carty report even after the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had been given a copy of it. The former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, told the House in 2001 that the report was given to him before it was given to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions

See this speech in context