Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Several of the Minister's backbenchers have said tonight that this debate is about personality. It is absolutely not. The material that was sent to the Minister's home today is utterly reprehensible and our leader has dealt with that issue in his opening remarks. The issues that have emerged in recent months on penalty points, the GSOC and Garda tapes have become so confusing and there is such a tangled web at this stage. Perhaps the management of these issues has perpetuated that confusion deliberately.

We are led to believe that the improper recording of telephone conversations at certain Garda stations exploded as an issue on Sunday, 23 March when the Attorney General briefed the Taoiseach and the suggestion was that it was something new or that there was a dramatic new revelation which had the potential to lead to the appalling vista of the doors of Irish prisons being opened up, with rapists and murderers walking free onto our streets. This issue was urgent and grave to the extent that the Taoiseach felt the need to dispatch the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality to the Garda Commissioner's home, without consulting the Minister, to convey those sentiments to him.

The problem with all of that is the Attorney General, who advises the Government, had been aware of the Garda telephone tape recording issue since the previous November. There has been precious little commentary on that. She was briefed by the Garda Commissioner in November last year. I am led to the conclusion that all of this is about political expediency. We have an Attorney General from the Labour Party family. We have a Fine Gael Minister for Justice and Equality. The Fine Gael message to the Labour Party in recent days has been quite clear: if the Labour Party comes looking for the head of the Minister for Justice and Equality, then the Labour Party had better be prepared to sacrifice the Attorney General as well. Of course, there had to be a head on a plate.

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