Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

However, following what has happened, the Minister has not the ability to carry out with the confidence of the people and indeed of this Chamber and many of his own colleagues, the role of political head of the Garda in this country.

It follows on from an arrogant performance by the Minister of his duty over the past two months. In carrying out his role, Deputy Shatter has failed in many instances - as a rule - to acknowledge the difficulty with which the Garda force must carry out its job on a daily basis. He has got into conflict with the gardaí in a way that no previous Minister managed to. For the first time in the history of the State, a sitting Minister was not invited to the Garda conferences. He also was at loggerheads with the Judiciary. Indeed, a special committee has had to be set up in order to engage with and communicate between the legal and political arms of the State. In the past couple of weeks, by disclosing the information he did following on from a briefing he was given by the Garda Commissioner, the Minister has also damaged irreparably the relationship which needs to exist between the Minister for Justice and Equality and the Garda Commissioner in administering law and order in the State.

Some core pillars, of which the Minister for Justice and Equality must be at the head, have been irreparably severed by Deputy Shatter, leaving him in a difficult position and making it difficult for the public to have the type of confidence that is required in a Minister for Justice and Equality and in the justice system in the country. If there are question marks hanging over the way the Minister for Justice and Equality participated when he faced the same scenario, how, for example, can he expect rank and file members of the Garda, in carrying out their duty and in conducting mandatory breath-testing stations across the country, to be able to carry out their job in the way they would have previously and ensure that people can give them full co-operation? That leaves them in a very difficult position. It is an unenviable position for a force to be in in relation to the political figurehead who is in place.

I also want to remark upon the impact the Minister has had on Garda resources right throughout the country, where we have seen numbers reduced over his stewardship and stations closed, and the flippant way he threw out there that if Croke Park II had been passed, he may have reopened Templemore. Should Deputy Shatter remain in office, an office in which he should no longer remain considering the difficult position in which he has found himself as a result of how this role has been performed by him in recent times, I might ask him, now that it looks like the savings which the Government was seeking will be achieved, if he will commit to doing what he stated he would do should he remain.

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