Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wonder how she knows that because there are quite clearly a broad range of circumstances in which tickets can be properly cancelled and I have already given detail of those. I say to both Deputies that there will be no cover up, on my watch, of anything. I have the greatest confidence in the Garda Commissioner to ensure that these matters will be and are currently being properly investigated. There will also, on my watch, be no special treatment afforded to any individual whether he or she is a celebrity, a pal of someone or for any other reason. On my watch, the law will be properly applied. It is important that in dealing with this issue, like others, the gardaí have some discretion when, for example, a ticket is issued in circumstances where perhaps it should not have been issued - if it was the wrong driver or the wrong vehicle, the individual was driving an emergency service vehicle or a doctor was going to deal with an emergency in a hospital. There is a broad range of circumstances in which the gardaí can quite properly exercise discretion with regard to a ticket charge that was issued. I will give Deputy Daly an example. I can see the Deputy jumping up and down, shouting in circumstances in which the husband of a young pregnant woman who was about to give birth was sent a ticket because he got her to hospital just in time. In circumstances like that, of course the gardaí should be able to exercise their discretion.

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