Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----I cannot understand how he did not seek to deal with all of the specific and serious allegations that were made. I hope that the person on the Government side who gets the opportunity to deliver the ministerial conclusion in respect of this debate will deal with those allegations. On the night in question, was the Minister, who is also a solicitor and an officer of the court, unco-operative - to the point of being rude - with the gardaí on the evening in question? Did he say to a particular garda, "Check your law book, it’s in the Constitution, you cannot stop me, I am going."? Did he then drive off from the checkpoint on Pembroke Street? Those are the specific allegations - printed in a national newspaper - with which the Minister did not deal last night. If there is no basis to the specific allegations to which I refer, then I hope the person charged with providing the ministerial conclusion to this debate will dismiss them out of hand. If the allegations are true, then we are in a very serious position and no amount of huffing or puffing or tributes from backbenchers will change that fact. It is not acceptable that a Deputy who is also an officer of the court would treat a member of An Garda Síochána performing their duty with contempt and arrogance.

Ultimately, this matter comes down to trust. As stated earlier, the Minister has lost the trust of many of the stakeholders in his Department. It is difficult to see how the bond of trust between him and the Garda Commissioner and other senior public servants in possession of confidential information can be restored.

The only people who seem to trust him are his colleagues in government. Frankly, enough has been said.

See this speech in context