Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. At the outset I must say that I bear the Minister no ill will on a personal basis or in a professional capacity. He is somebody whom I have observed over the years and I have considerable regard for his intellect, his work rate and many other attributes that he has displayed. Unfortunately, however, his handling of this particular issue on this occasion has been disturbing. It is deeply disturbing that we are here today and that the Minister has held out until now in issuing an apology to two people who, in the words of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, have done the State some service, and whose actions were "distinguished". I support the position of the Minister's colleague, Deputy Varadkar, in that regard. Even the Minister's apology today was less than wholesome. He said, in the context of the charge that was made that the whistleblowers did not co-operate, that he apologised to both and wished to "withdraw the statements made". He went on to say that it was never his intention "to cause any upset and, if any upset was caused..." but there was no need for that qualification. Upset was clearly caused in that case. At a later stage, the Minister went on to apologise for any offence that "may have been caused by any other remarks made by me". The Minister's use of the word "may" is something that I find difficult to accept, although the Minister is not unique in this regard. Some of his colleagues and some former Ministers from various parties, including my own, have sought to qualify apologies. It does no service to the Minister or to anyone else who seeks to find refuge in that kind of qualification. I am disappointed that the Minister chose to use that language. The Minister has accepted the evidence that has been presented that the whistleblowers acted in good faith, did not seek not to co-operate and would have co-operated with the O'Mahoney investigation had they been given an opportunity to do so and that, therefore, his statements were incorrect at the time.

However, there is still an outstanding matter here. While I know Deputy Wallace is well able to speak for himself, I find it quite unbelievable that, to date, the Minister has not apologised for his actions concerning that Deputy. In fact, if there is a resigning matter in all of this, it is the fact that the Minister used privileged information that was provided to him by the Garda Commissioner in a private briefing session to seek to gain some level of political advantage. To me, that is where the absolute wrong was committed by the Minister. In his failure to recognise the evidence and to apologise, it could be argued that the Minister was lethargic in coming to the conclusion that he got it wrong. He sought to get evidence to support the position he had taken at the outset and finally, when it was abundantly clear to him that he was wrong, he issued the apology. However, from the very start, somebody with the Minister's intellect and legal training, who understands the burden of the office he occupies, should clearly have known that to divulge any information provided to him in his capacity as Minister for Justice and Equality in order to gain political advantage was wrong. It was absolutely wrong. If the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources obtained information regarding an exploration or the potential for oil to be found in some part of the country and, as a result of that information, sought to buy shares in the company, he would be sacked immediately because he would have used privileged information available to him by virtue of his office to gain personal advantage. I do not see any difference between that action and the action the Minister for Justice and Equality took in terms of using the information that was provided to him. He did so to gain political advantage for himself, to make himself appear better than Deputy Wallace and to enable him to win an argument within the political sphere. The other action would have been financial, while the Minister's actions were political, and I do not see the difference.

I wish to quote from the Code of Conduct for Office Holders, of which the Minister, as an office holder, is well aware. It reads as follows:

In accordance with the provisions of the Ethics Acts, office holders shall, in so far as it is relevant, have regard to and be guided by the Code in the performance of

their functions and in relation to any other matters specified in the Code. This Code seeks to ensure that office holders must at all times observe, and be seen to observe, the highest standards of ethical behaviour in the carrying out of the functions of their office. Office holders are obliged to act in accordance with advice given and guidelines published by the Standards in Public Office Commission (Standards Commission) unless to do so would constitute a contravention of another provision of the Ethics Acts. Pursuant to Section 10(8) of the 2001 Act, codes of conduct will be admissible in proceedings before a Court or other tribunal or a Committee or the Standards Commission and any relevant provision may be taken into account in determining a matter.

That sets out the framework from which one starts. It is very clearly laid out. Section 1.4 of the code makes reference to the principles of ethical conduct and reads as follows:

Holders of public office have a duty to keep faith with the public trust placed in them by the manner in which they carry out their official responsibilities. This is a personal responsibility and requires them at all times to promote the common good, fairly and impartially, to conscientiously and prudently apply the resources of their office in furtherance of the public interest and to observe the highest ethical standards in the performance of their duties.

The Standards Commission has described ethical behaviour in the following terms

“A successful ethics regime is one which provides mechanisms whereby the sensitivities of political/public life can be handled, where competing interests can be reconciled and where individual legislators/executives can be guided in their difficult decisions by reference to the general principle that the public interest should always take precedence over the interests of the individual and, perhaps more importantly, over the interests of a political party whether in power or in opposition.”

My reading of what the Standards Commission has adjudged leaves the Minister's pretence and his failure to recognise his wrongdoing on very thin ice indeed. I believe the Minister needs to address that in the fullness of time. Taking into account the Minister's intellect, which I have praised and recognised, the Minister leaves himself with no other option but to resign.

We also have the farcical situation in which the Taoiseach has involved himself. He sidelined the Minister on Sunday. I do not claim to know what had the Taoiseach in Dublin or why he was minded to make contact with the Attorney General, but there is one thing I will give the Taoiseach credit for - he is politically astute. Whatever by-the-way remark was made by the Attorney General, when she indicated that there was some other issue of some relevance and that she could not talk about it over the phone, as he told us, if it was of such relevance, one would assume that she would have communicated it to Government previously. It seems to me that it was a by-the-way remark and the Taoiseach capitalised on it, from a political perspective, very quickly. He knew that if he had another issue, he had the Labour Party backed into a corner. The manoeuvring of the Taoiseach over the last two days was a classic case of political expediency, for which he may be caught out in the future. It has certainly backed the Labour Party into a corner, because the Taoiseach now has something on the Attorney General. It appears that she had been aware since last November of the information that is now of such serious import.

With the Attorney General and the Labour Party on the back foot, it protects the Minister because, as the biblical adage goes, it would be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth - if the Minister went, the Attorney General would too. The Labour Party is once again joined at the hip with Fine Gael. In the fullness of time, the public will see the importance of the issue around the bugging of phones or the recordings made in Garda stations. However, it is not of such significant interest. Instead, it is being used to wrap another shield around the Minister.

There have a been a series of resignations on the Minister’s watch. He never really dealt with the resignation of the Garda confidential recipient. The chief executive officer of the Road Safety Authority, Noel Brett, has gone, exasperated with the Minister’s inability to provide an appropriate level of funding to the police force to carry out the kind of enforcement necessary to continue the reduction in road traffic fatalities. The Minister himself recognised earlier that there has been an increase in road deaths. John Wilson effectively took to the ditch and had to resign from the force. The Commissioner is now gone. Who next? Today on local radio, some of the Minister’s colleagues were prepared to push the blame on to the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality. It was he who failed, they argued, to bring the information to the Minister’s attention. The Minister also tried it with the Attorney General. The Minister puts all these people on the periphery while he continues to defend, protect and preserve his own personal interest over the interests of the Garda Síochána and the administration of justice in the State. The stability of the Government has been put at issue over the past several days to protect the Minister. It is bizarre.

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