Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

He came into the House yesterday and he made a full statement on the issue. He apologised and said he was sorry for what happened. It is important that we get a little perspective on this. We need to look to look at what has happened here. A series of allegations were made about serious criminality and corruption in the Garda Síochána in the administration of the penalty points system. The allegations were taken up by a number of Deputies who repeated them in public and in the House. Individuals were named in the House before the investigation was undertaken. There were wide-ranging and sweeping allegations, which have not been stood up. It was a bad episode that allegations were made about people which were not stood up.

The Minister launched an investigation, which involved considerable Garda resources, and it has shown there is no evidence of criminality or corruption. However, it found disappointing failings in the way in which the penalty points system is administered and, as the Deputy will be aware, disciplinary proceedings are being taken in a number of cases. That was the context in which the remarks were made.

The Minister addressed the issue of the context in which the Garda Commissioner made the information available to him. Allegations were made, as I recall, by at least one Deputy that public officials had intervened to have road traffic offences in some way disappeared by the Garda. In his statement to the House yesterday, the Minister said "I have no doubt that the Garda Commissioner was mindful too that Deputy Wallace might make public reference to the incident as part of the public controversy which was going on about fixed charge notices and in these circumstances he had a duty to mention it to me".

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