Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That appears to be the opinion of the Minister and his colleagues in government. Incidentally, utterances made by other Cabinet members on this issue since last week appear to have had the blessing of the Taoiseach, whereas only a week previously all comments were to be made in the privacy of the Cabinet room. Unfortunately, public comments made by the Ministers for Finance, Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputies Noonan, Rabbitte and Varadkar, respectively, have done nothing but raise further questions.

To return to the nub of the issue, namely, the timeline of events in the fateful weekend before last, are we to believe, and is Paddy to believe, the coincidence that this issue landed in the lap of the Taoiseach on the Sunday before a Cabinet meeting which had, at its centre, the future of the Garda Commissioner and Minister for Justice and Equality? Are we to believe, and is Paddy to believe, that the Taoiseach, when briefed by the Attorney General on the Sunday in question, did not believe it would be worthwhile to telephone the Minister for Justice and Equality, supposedly the hardest working, most reforming Minister in Cabinet? Despite the Minister having more legislation, acumen and intelligence than any other Minister in the Cabinet, the Taoiseach did not believe it necessary to contact him. Instead, we are to believe that the Taoiseach saw fit to sleep on the matter.

We are led to believe the following scenario occurred the next morning. The Taoiseach again decided not to consult the Minister for Justice and Equality, officials in the Department of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste or the leader of the Labour Party, his partner in government in whom he has little faith, and instead called in the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality who is supposedly answerable to the Minister for Justice and Equality, who had not yet arrived. The Secretary General, Mr. Brian Purcell, is the person to whom the then Garda Commissioner, Mr. Callinan, had written two weeks previously asking that he inform the Minister about the issue. Moreover, the Minister's staff had been engaged on this very issue with staff in the Office of the Attorney General since the previous June. Until that point, of course, the issue had been deemed insignificant. The Taoiseach then decided to despatch the Secretary General, the most senior official in the Department of the Minister, Deputy Shatter, to the home of the Garda Commissioner. Was this decision taken with the consent and agreement of the Minister? Was it the case that an official of the Department of Justice and Equality was sent because only a Minister in that Department can sack a Garda Commissioner? Given that the Taoiseach cannot do so, as he informed us last week, perhaps there was method in his madness as a visit from a Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality has an obvious inference.

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