Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was reported that the Minister appeared not to make a sufficient effort to complete the breath test and that he drove off without being waved on by the officer. If a newspaper wrongly made those allegations about me I would sue them because either they are correct or the Minister has been seriously defamed. I would let nobody make such allegations about me. That is a decision the Minister will make in his own good time.

A follow-on story appeared in The Irish Times today, presumably from a different source, which said, for example, that the garda involved believed in the course of the conversation with the Minister that he was suggesting that he could not be stopped or detained because he was travelling from the Dáil. I do not believe the journalist involved made all of that up. Somebody clearly gave the newspaper this version of events. It is in the public interest that we get to the bottom of the issue.

My colleague is correct; the only way to deal with this is to have the matter referred to the Commissioner, have it investigated and have a report issued in order that everyone knows where he or she stands. There is one issue I do not understand fully. The Minister did not just happen to tell the garda that evening that he was on his way home from Dáil Éireann. It was not like any other worker saying he or she was returning home from a factory. Given the Minister's legal knowledge and expertise, he understood full well the import and implication of what he was saying to the garda that evening.

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