Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday Deputy Mattie McGrath made the point that the GSOC report had referred to the fact that all of this had arisen from the Waterford case. The GSOC report referred to the particular case in Waterford police station.

It did not refer to the much wider trawl that has now brought to light more than 2,500 tapes and the rest from 2008 to 2013 that are of a digital nature. That is why it is important that there be a commission of investigation, hopefully conducted by somebody exceptionally competent from Supreme Court level, to look at the reasons for and the background to what this was all about. That is a fundamentally important issue for our country.

My intention here was to do what I thought was right and to do it immediately; having spoken to the Attorney General, to have that assessed, to have the facts as I know them to this point, to inform my colleagues at Cabinet and to inform the leaders of the opposition parties. I dealt with Deputy Murphy yesterday and my apologies to her for not having included her or a member of her group in that. This is an issue that we need to get right and that we will get right. That is the reason I acted in the way I did.

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