Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

He was out defending the former Minister. I reiterate the point that Deputy Shatter was not acting alone. The Taoiseach took charge of matters in March when the Attorney General informed him during a telephone conversation that she did not trust the integrity of her phone and that she needed to speak to him in person in respect of a particular matter. She then alerted the Taoiseach to the issue of the taping of telephone calls in and out of Garda stations and he took charge. It is, therefore, the Taoiseach who should be resigning. Until the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar - as he was entitled to do - praised the actions of the whistleblowers, Labour had remained mute on this matter. It only became active in respect of it in the aftermath of the Minister's remarks.

We wish to new Ministers well but we will not be supporting the nomination for the position of Minister for Justice and Equality because we do not believe that the Government has learned lessons from the events which led up to the resignation of the former Minister. The problems to which I refer will not be resolved by rearranging the deck chairs. At the core of all of that which we are discussing are several injustices. This is not about me, about the Taoiseach or about the former Minister. Rather, it is about those who had grievances which were not dealt with and the investigation into the murder of Madame du Plantier. In that context, I raised with the Taoiseach yesterday the fact that the State is still spend taxpayers' money to defend a civil action which has led to the resignation of a Minister. What we required is a genuine reforming Government and the quicker we get one the better.

See this speech in context