Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I cannot speak on behalf of the Attorney General in respect of details I do not know. My understanding is that on her side, this particular issue arose in regard to a piece of litigation involving two different people that was taking place and that tapes were disclosed or found that could be of relevance - and proved ultimately to be of relevance - to this litigation. This is my understanding of the November issue. I understand the focus was on this piece of litigation. I do not know the timeline as established by the working group the Garda Commissioner set up, but clearly the Attorney General became very concerned and alarmed and I presume at some point the scale of the issue became clear. However, I do not think it was clear in November. When it became clear, she, appropriately, briefed the Taoiseach and that is the position.

The Deputy mentioned some trials today may have been affected by this. It is not a national secret that I spent most of my day in the Chamber, so I am not familiar at the moment with events that happened in the courts today. Obviously, the implications of this are serious and that is the reason the issue is being taken seriously.

The Deputy asked about the 2007 legislation I referred to earlier. As I understand it, that is legislation which ensured the legality of recording a 999 call. A tape can be made of such conversations automatically. There is legislation regarding taping, such as telecommunications legislation. For brevity, there was a 1983 Act and a 1993 Act. The 1983 Act seemed to require that if a conversation was taped in these sorts of circumstances, the taping required the consent of both parties to the conversation. The 1993 Act seemed to change the law to require only the consent of one of the parties to the conversation. However, I do not pretend to be an expert on this aspect of the law.

See this speech in context