Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

When the Taoiseach reads the Dáil debates at night I would ask him to focus on some of the language that he uses because language ceases to have any meaning when he issues a reply like the one we have just heard. The fact of the matter is that the then Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, claimed throughout 2001 that he had the Carty report. As time is limited, I will furnish one quotation. On 23 May 2001, Deputy O'Donoghue said, at column 1414 of the Dáil debates, "The investigation by Assistant Commissioner Carty was completed and presented to me and, in turn, to the Director of Public Prosecutions." That was on 23 May and he repeated that point to Deputy Howlin and others. Last Wednesday, 22 June 2005, the Taoiseach came into the House and said: "A partial version of the Carty report was eventually furnished in November 2001..." That is a straightforward untruth. The report was furnished on 1 August 2000. The Taoiseach uttered a straightforward untruth and he has now picked up the habit of his former Attorney General, Deputy McDowell, of trying to throw sand in people's eyes about when is the Carty report not the Carty report; when is the Carty report the Conroy report; and what is the difference between the report and an investigation file needed for prosecution. Opposition Deputies were not talking about an investigation file for prosecution, which was the defence that the Minister advanced. We were talking about the hair-raising report from Mr. Noel Conroy, who acted quite properly and who, within a month of the report being delivered to Mr. Pat Byrne, summarised it and sent it to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform in easily intelligible terms. The Minister did nothing and a year and three months later, when we put down a motion in the House calling for the matter to be investigated, the Government voted it down.

The current Minister, Deputy McDowell, has stated that he could not engage in such an inquiry because he had not received the full Carty report. When, as Attorney General, he was advising on the legal redress scheme and could not get the relevant report because of the secret deal cooked up by the Taoiseach and Deputy Woods, he quite properly said that he would withdraw from giving advice because he could not get the documents from Deputy Woods. However, he did not say the same in this case and he has now dropped the Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, in it to the extent that the poor fellow is ashamed to come into the House, go on radio or television or to present himself anywhere. He is properly embarrassed, as he ought to be, about having read the Conroy report and done nothing about it.

See this speech in context