Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Shatter, is a most competent Minister. The Government's amendment to the motion, which lists his legislative achievements, his successes in the battle against crime and his reforming zeal, is testimony to this. Most of the difficulties in the justice area in recent months arose from incidents that occurred when Fianna Fáil was in office. In this respect, Fianna Fáil has performed a major conjuring trick through which the people who caused the mess are blameless and the man who is cleaning it up is supposed to be at fault.

Several inquiries are in place to deal with the issues that have been debated in the Chamber in recent months. When the reports come to hand, they will be fully debated in the House. While all of these matters are important and must be fully investigated and those lessons that need to be learned must be learned, they are of a different order of priority than the latest revelations of conversations of telephone calls to and from Garda stations being recorded, a practice that occurred over a period of at least 20 years and on a widespread basis. Even before the commission of inquiry begins its work, it is clear that this revelation is a crystalising event and that Garda structures and systems must be changed radically and quickly.

This is why, on the proposal of the Taoiseach at last week's Cabinet meeting, a decision was taken to establish an independent policing authority. The work on this will proceed immediately and we are fortunate that we have Deputy Shatter as Minister for Justice and Equality-----

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