John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

When an allegation is made against any citizen in this State, information on that allegation is between the citizen, possibly the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Garda Síochána and maybe the offended individual. Are we seriously saying that it is now the position in this State that an allegation can be made against an individual by a Minister who may have been informed by a member of the Garda Síochána and for that Minister to go on television and mention the individual by name when, to my mind, having listened twice to the programme, no offence was committed? An offence has been committed if a person is charged by a garda. No offence was committed because he was not charged with any offence. Does it give any Minister the right to go on public television and to name an individual?

This relates back to the fundamental issue in the first question I asked. If the case is as he stated, the Taoiseach is opening it up to other Ministers to do likewise where they have information on an Opposition Member, journalist or other person. A Minister can say "oh well, I got this information from the Garda, so it is relevant and right information". We cannot gloss over this. The Taoiseach cannot throw it under the carpet. We must understand that it is unacceptable that the Garda would provide this information and that the Minister would make a statement on it where no charge had been brought and nobody had been brought to court. We should forget that this man is a politician. That the Minister can put an individual's name out on public television on the basis of an assumption, allegation or words passed at a meeting to the effect that something had taken place is dangerous to democracy.

See this speech in context