Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

Is the Minister saying the reason the gardaí refused to provide the technical and operational data on the intoxilyser that were requested was that the Director of Public Prosecutions was consulted and said they should not be provided? Is he saying someone else told the gardaí not to provide the data or did they decide not to provide them themselves? Where does the buck stop? The Minister says he has no role in this but at a minimum he could find out what exactly happened and who was responsible for the decision that resulted in the judge throwing out 13 cases which, no doubt, will result in all other cases coming along being put on the back burner until the matter is dealt with by a higher court.

Once again the intoxilyser has been brought into ill repute, even though it is fine equipment, because the procedures under which it has been operated leave much to be desired. If the State is not prepared to play its part, there is not much sense in the Joint Committee on Transport meeting to decide if it is a constitutional matter to have random breath testing. We cannot get prosecutions from the intoxilyser without full co-operation from the people who operate it.

See this speech in context