Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

There has been a long delay and a long legal wrangle. Two issues are responsible for the delay. Initially the report named individuals but left it to the Government to decide if names should be made public. These people were never arrested or charged. I felt uncomfortable publishing names as dissidents or others may take action against these people and we would have no defence against that. A long legal wrangle developed which is now resolved. The report will deal with it.

There was a difference of opinion between gardaí on what happened and how matters were handled. Two senior gardaí, neither of whom was a commissioner at the time, took differing points of view. People went back and forth to Mr. Justice Barron to given their perspective but he must decide how to call this in the end. This went on for some time and I am not sure how it is called in the report. Two people had an entirely different view of the circumstances. In the normal course of events they were shown the section of the report that was relevant to them. Both gentlemen are elderly at this stage but one of them was not well and I understand it took some months before he responded. They were the two issues. In one I was not directly involved but I was involved in the second one. There is a difference between hearsay about the names of individuals that may have been involved and putting them into an official report that would be laid before the Oireachtas.

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