Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was wondering if the Minister, Deputy Quinn, had said anything positive about former Minister, Deputy Shatter. While in this regard there was not much information around the old Twitter machine tells me that in the past hour the Minister, Deputy Quinn, said that former Minister, Deputy Shatter, was a reforming Minister, whose record will stand for many years to come. How true.

"I'll tell you something Maurice, and this is just personal advice to you, if Shatter thinks you're screwing him, you're finished."

"If Shatter thinks, here's this guy again trying another route trying to put pressure, he'll go after you."

"He'll go after you."

Fortunately, Deputy Shatter has resigned as Minister. However, the comments of the Minister, Deputy Quinn, suggest that he thinks he was great and right to do what he did.

At this time, Garda Nicky Keogh - that is his name and he is proud of it - from Athlone Garda Station is presenting information to the confidential recipient, Mr. Justice Patrick McMahon. Given the gaping hole that there is in legislation in this country, which means the avenue of the Ombudsman commission is cut off, he has no option but to go to the confidential recipient. He has been left with no choice but to go public because since last week when the man voted by this Government to be Taoiseach laughed at what he brought to me the word at his local Garda station is that he is a whistleblower or, to use a word being used by many people, a snitch. His allegations are serious, including a cover up of an original file which was stolen, with the original incident being removed from the PULSE system; the creation of new statements and appearance of new original information; non-compliance by the Garda with the court order for disclosure and at least one of the accused being threatened by a garda to plead guilty on the day of the court case.

His greatest concern with the drugs operation in November 2009 is that there was a systematic and orchestrated effort by high-ranking Garda officers to induce and coerce citizens, in this case citizens with no previous criminal conviction, to buy drugs from drug dealers, putting them in personal danger, and sell the drugs in turn to undercover gardaí without making any profit, thus boosting crime detection figures concerning arrests, charges and convictions. The result of this operation was that these mostly young citizens of the State, who had no previous drug convictions, now have serious drug convictions.

Finally, a further aspect of grave concern regarding the planning of this operation was that the list of persons nominated to be targeted had a notable omission in that a significant and well recognised drug dealer in the area who has long been associated with a senior member of the drugs unit was excluded. My question is simple enough: what will the Government do to reassure the whistleblower that he will not be bullied or have a rat hung on his door? Will the Government encourage members of the public to go to Athlone Garda station this evening? When the man in question goes to work, he should be encouraged and it should be made known to him that he is a hero and not a rat, as the Government seems to suggest such people are.

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