Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I have already acknowledged, the whistleblowers have had a vital role in getting us to this point. As the Deputy said, the report exposes many very serious failings. With so-called "send-backs", 65% were not returned. As the Deputy has acknowledged there was huge variation in the treatment in different districts with some refusing every application for cancellation and others accepting every application for cancellation. Some 52% of summonses went unserved. In the case of 60% of the convictions, no driving licence number was recorded after the cases and 30% of fines went unpaid. Clearly this has exposed very serious failings in this system.

The role of the inspectorate is not to look at whether any of these decisions were made corruptly, but to expose a system that was riddled with shortcomings and that is what it has done. It has made 37 recommendations and the Government yesterday made a decision to implement all of them. As of today we are starting on the process of the implementation.

As I said to Deputy Calleary, I do not accept that the Minister for Justice and Equality has failed in any respect. Clearly when allegations were brought to his attention, as they have been, he has acted properly in all cases. We have seen, as a consequence of his action, this inspection report. The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission is investigating whether any activity that occurred under the fixed-notice cancellation has issues in respect of the responsibility of individual gardaí, and that is being dealt with. As I said to Deputy Calleary, the Minister for Justice and Equality has acted properly in this respect.

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