Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will confine my questions to the issue of the Garda Inspectorate and the report. I flagged two issues when I spoke earlier. First, there was what we would describe as the premature leaking of the report. Can the Minister give us an undertaking that the next time important reports are due - important reports such as the Cooke and the Guerin reports are due and they will be discussed - that they will not be leaked to the media and that the Members of the Oireachtas will rightfully have first view of those?

Second, I asked the Minister in my initial contribution about Mr. Robert Olsen of the Garda Inspectorate in the context of it having been detailed in a newspaper interview that he had never met the Minister and that they - or at least the Department of Justice and Equality - shared the same building. Could the Minister comment on that?

Third, on the vacant position of Commissioner, the Minister has appointed Noreen O'Sullivan to act in an interim capacity and the Minister said that the position will be filled by open competition. On the consequential back-fill vacancies that will occur, the recently departed Commissioner conducted a round of interviews to fill deputy commissioner posts and an assistant commissioner post. Now that former Commissioner Callinan has departed the scene will interviews take place again? In other words, will the process that had taken place under the stewardship of Commissioner Callinan be declared null and void and will the process start again once a new Commissioner has been appointed, or will those vacancies of deputy and assistant commissioners be filled by open competition also, or by what process will they be filled?

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