Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

I thank Mr. Justice Morris and his team for producing eight comprehensive and conclusive reports and for the huge service they have done for An Garda Síochána and the Irish public they serve. They carried out their task with diligence, independence, intelligence and fairness. Having listened to more than 680 days of oral evidence from 812 witnesses, the tribunal chairman reached his conclusions without fear or favour. His practice of publishing reports at the end of each module or set of modules facilitated the previous debates in this House and enabled the Government to give considerable weight to his recommendations in framing the Garda Síochána Act 2005.

Given the widespread and deserved praise for its work, it is disappointing that there has been some criticism of the tribunal in the wake of the publication of its eighth report. This criticism relates mainly to its findings relating to the refusal by former Deputy, Jim Higgins, and Deputy Brendan Howlin to disclose the sources of the accusations they brought to notice regarding two much respected Assistant Commissioners — information that ultimately proved to be absolutely and completely untrue. In fairness to Mr. Justice Morris, and to Assistant Commissioners Tony Hickey and Kevin Carty, who have not had a voice in this, I would like to address this issue.

The allegations passed on by Deputies Higgins and Howlin to the then Minister for Justice, Deputy John O'Donoghue, against the two Assistant Garda Commissioners were of the gravest kind. They were so grave that there was much more at stake than their professional reputations. If true, the allegations meant that a number of persons had been wrongfully convicted and were perhaps wrongfully imprisoned because of evidence that had been unlawfully obtained or planted with the connivance and approval of some of the most senior members of our national police service. Despite the gravity of the allegations and their potentially ruinous effects, neither Deputy Howlin nor Deputy Higgins was willing to reveal his source to either the Garda assistant commissioner appointed to investigate the matter following the intervention of then Minister, Deputy John O'Donoghue, or to the tribunal itself. In fact, the first indication of the source of the information emerged in January 2003 in an interview between Frank McBrearty senior and the tribunal's investigators, a full three years after the allegations had been made.

Was it reasonable for either the investigating assistant commissioner or the tribunal to look for this information? Let me give Mr. Justice Hardiman's view, as enunciated in the Supreme Court, when it considered these matters.

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