Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

You have read it now and I thank you for it. The Minister claimed that it was not his intention to mislead the House and I challenge that assertion because this House was misled. In a calculated and repeated fashion this House was told that the gardaí, in particular Sergeant Maurice McCabe, failed to co-operate with established Garda procedures. We were certainly misled had we been foolish enough to take the Minister on his word. The Minister knew at that time, as he conceded today, that no attempt had been made throughout the O’Mahony process to speak to those gardaí. The Minister knew that then, even as he made the statement.

One could ask what has changed between then and now. The Minister said in the course of his apology that he had revisited the information. What new information has crossed the desk of the Minister, Deputy Shatter, to demonstrate to him the error of his ways? I do not think there was any new information. The facts are the facts. The difference today is that the Minister knows it is no longer politically acceptable for him to continue the attack on those two men. He knows public opinion is entirely against him and entirely supportive of the two brave whistleblowers.

The Minister told us also that his brave new dawn for policing will be all about accountability. That is welcome. What about the Minister’s accountability? Is it really sufficient for the Minister months later, having abused the men on the plinth outside the Dáil, and having abused his position to place false information on the record of the Dáil and then to persist in the falsehood, to simply come to the House and make a fairly lukewarm apology to the men? The question is whether that is enough. To my mind it is not. I do not think the Minister has any appetite for accountability himself. While he might preach it to An Garda Síochána he is certainly not amenable to taking the consequences of his own actions or inaction. If the Minister really believed in accountability he would step down from his position in Cabinet. The reason he would do that is that it would be as clear to him as it is to everybody else in the country that he has no credibility when it comes to reform of An Garda Síochána. He has no credibility when it comes to protecting whistleblowers. Neither does he have credibility when he lauds GSOC and talks about the need to reform that body. The Minister has absolutely no credibility when he claims that it was Tuesday morning before he saw crucial correspondence on the illegal recording of telephone calls to and from Garda stations. The Minister has no credibility whatsoever in respect of his portfolio.

In the course of the litany of chaos that has surrounded the Minister in recent months, people have fallen like skittles. The Minister’s friend, the confidential recipient, is gone. The Garda Commissioner is gone. The Minister's friend, the Taoiseach, continues to defend him trenchantly and in a manner that amazes public opinion.

The Minister's response to all of this in the midst of all this mess, over which he presides, is: "I hope the House can agree that it would be in the public interest to do what we can to move on from the present controversy ... and get on with the work which is under way which will achieve a fair, transparent and effective system." The Minister, Deputy Shatter, has made his apology in the hope that we will all move on and forget all about it but that is not a position that is acceptable to Sinn Féin. If the Deputy is going to be the Minister who talks about accountability he should start with himself. The accountable and responsible thing for the Minster, Deputy Shatter, to do is to step down.

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