Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said all along that he wanted to restore and maintain public confidence in the policing and justice system in this country. Surely it is obvious that his handling of these matters over the past two years, particularly in the past few weeks, has done the exact opposite. It has battered the credibility of the gardaí, the Department of Justice and Equality and the Minister. He has impugned the reputation of Maurice McCabe, somebody brave enough to speak out about what he believed to be widespread wrongdoing, malpractice and failure to investigate serious crimes. He tried to undermine the credibility of GSOC which suspected it was being bugged by the gardaí. He has sacked somebody who was involved in a conversation with the whistleblower Maurice McCabe because he refused to retract what he said in that conversation. Despite recounting his own history of wanting to bring about reform before he got into Government and of having a history of reform, he has gone native. He has closed ranks with the gardaí and tried to undermine, demonise and vilify anybody who has questioned his view of these things or who has brought serious questions about malpractice in the gardaí into the public domain, including Deputies in this House.

Another example of this is the very serious case of Cynthia Owen. She alleges that as a ten year old child, she was raped and made pregnant by members of her own family and that senior gardaí were involved in that. The investigation of that case was a travesty. It was closed down after six weeks. Some of the people at the centre of the allegations were involved in the investigation. There was a review of the paperwork similar to the one the Minister is now proposing in these cases but Cynthia Owen was never interviewed about this horrendous case. The child that issued from that rape and abuse was murdered and serious allegations were made. Cynthia Owen's legal representatives have asked the Minister to open that case up as a public inquiry and have asked to meet him - just to meet him. I have asked two parliamentary questions about the mishandling of that most serious of cases involving rape and murder with a ten year old child at the centre of it and the Minister has refused even to meet the legal representatives of Cynthia Owen. Why? It is because it raises questions about the gardaí.

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