Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

After this came into the public domain, I spoke to the Commissioner and deputy commissioner about operations. They assured me they had taken steps immediately to ensure that in future circular material of this kind would be more carefully examined, that any reference to Ireland would be immediately acted upon, that inquiries would be made with regard to the sending case to ensure gardaí were in possession of the maximum amount of information available and that incoming information would be shared among the garda units appropriate to deal with it.

I am quite satisfied the Commissioner is fully committed to ensuring this error is not repeated. For that reason, in addition to implementing a more rigorous examination of this kind of material and an immediate action plan on foot of this kind of intelligence, he has sought a more full and reflective inquiry as to what went wrong on the occasion.

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