Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

The Taoiseach has not told anything like the full story in so far as investigations indicate. Does he believe in the basic wisdom that justice delayed is justice denied? On that basis will he explain to the House whether he finds it satisfactory that when the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, received the report of the Carty investigation, over nine months elapsed before the advice of the Attorney General was sought?

On the basis of the questions which arise from that, would the Taoiseach not like to see a Private Notice Question on which Deputy Cuffe has been working on behalf of the Green Party in which Deputies O'Donoghue and McDowell could answer for their lack of actions in the course of this saga? Not only was there a nine-month delay, when the advice was sought, the full file was not made available to the Attorney General, as we now know. Was that not unacceptable to the Taoiseach?

Is he not, as Taoiseach, duty bound to hold to account Ministers who displayed such ineptitude and prevarication on a matter which has not only cost the State a great deal of money, but has also damaged the reputation of the Garda Síochána and generated enormous trauma and pain, particularly for the McBrearty family and others? Will he not take responsibility as Head of Government and initiate action about what we now know to have been ineptitude and prevarication?

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