Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday in this Chamber we saw two gross acts of hypocrisy. We rightly had expressions of sympathy for the late Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe and during those it was despicable that Deputy Gerry Adams came in here and engaged in a brazen act of hypocrisy in trying to cleanse his political pedigree by apologising for the killing of Jerry McCabe 17 years ago. The killing of Jerry McCabe was a murder, nothing more or nothing less. It was a murder then and it is still a murder today. Seventeen years on we must ask why Deputy Gerry Adams came into the House to engage in that act of hypocrisy.

There were so many other opportunities in the intervening 17 years. One has to ask oneself why he did not condemn the killers of Detective Garda Jerry McCabe rather than arranging cheerleading parties to greet them when they came out of prison or having special status for them at their political party meetings or at Sinn Féin Ard-Fheiseanna. It makes me sick, I can tell you that. I think it makes a lot of people sick.

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, formed an alliance yesterday with the Sinn Féin Party in trying to upend a democratic motion on a matter which affects every single community in urban and rural Ireland. The Minister engaged in a cynical political exercise by trying to politicise the events around a garda's funeral this week and trying to link them to our motion. Shame on the Minister. He should have been bigger and a man about it and risen above it.

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