Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us get back to the actual subject of the six questions, namely, the Fennelly commission. The Taoiseach took us on a tour of the entire justice portfolio in his opening reply. To set the scene again, the reason I tabled three of these questions on the extended time requested and allowed for the Fennelly report and asking the Taoiseach whether he would make a statement on the matter is that the Taoiseach has essentially refused to answer any specific questions about the commission as it is still reporting. We must always remember that this relates to a meeting held on Monday, 24 March 2014, which the Taoiseach attended, as well as two Secretaries General, and over a year later we still do not know what were the instructions to the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality.

In advance of the establishment of the Fennelly commission, the Taoiseach refused to give a proper, comprehensive account of what happened, and we only learned a few days after the event that he had sent the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality. There has been a fundamental lack of transparency regarding a very serious issue, namely, the forced resignation or, as I said at the time, the sacking, of a Garda Commissioner, or whatever one wants to call it. The sequence of events was blurred. We would never have needed Fennelly to investigate it had the Taoiseach been forthcoming in the House and fully transparent about all that took place. The Garda Commissioner resigned the morning after the meeting that was held in the Department of the Taoiseach. We do not know what was discussed or what directions were given to Mr. Purcell before he visited the home of the then Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan. No minutes of the meeting were kept. The former Secretary General could not attend the justice committee or answer questions there because he was going before the Fennelly commission. Although we talk about the primacy of the House, in this case the House was sidelined.

When the Taoiseach was asked in a very straightforward way whether he had been called back before the Fennelly commission, he gave a long rigmarole about him not being legally allowed to say whether he had been called back and that it would be an offence to do so. The solicitor of the commission has confirmed that it would not be an offence and was unable to cite any legislation which would make it an offence for witnesses to confirm their attendance. However, the Taoiseach continued to publicly mislead everybody by saying it would be an offence to confirm his attendance. It would have been no big deal to have said he had attended the commission a second time. In the Taoiseach's reply, could he confirm whether he was called back a second time by the Fennelly commission?

Overall, there has been an unhealthy unwillingness on the part of the Taoiseach to be up front and straight about what happened during the days leading up to the resignation of the former Garda Commissioner. The truth cannot harm the inquiry. As the then Tánaiste, Deputy Gilmore, said, the public is entitled to know the full facts surrounding the resignation of the Garda Commissioner. The former Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, has resigned. The Secretary General of the Department has been transferred to another Department. Serious questions remain unanswered. Although the Taoiseach could have answered all the questions in the Dáil, he asked a retired Supreme Court judge to investigate the matter. The Taoiseach trotted out the line that the committee asked him to do it and he agreed. I do not buy it. This has been deliberately put on the long finger to get him out of a hole. It flies in the face of all the talk about how "Paddy likes to know" and transparency which the Taoiseach said before he came into government and was elected Taoiseach. A year and three months later the Taoiseach cannot come here and give us a straight narrative and tell it as it is. He could have done it at the time.

The terms of reference of the commission state include:

(n) to investigate and report on the furnishing to the Minister of a letter dated 10 March 2014 sent by the former Garda Commissioner, Mr. Martin Callinan, to the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality;

(o) to investigate and report on the sequence of events leading up to the retirement of the former Garda Commissioner, Mr. Martin Callinan.

The Taoiseach and the Department of Justice and Equality could have covered both of the issues. It did not require the appointment of Mr. Justice Fennelly.

The Taoiseach is saying the timeframe is entirely a matter for the judge. No inquiry goes on forever. I have a very straightforward question, which is contained in Deputy Wallace's question. Will we see that module of the report before the next general election? Does the Taoiseach intend that it will go on forever and that no time limits will be set for the conclusion of the report? The Taoiseach would agree that would be very unsatisfactory. The Dáil and the public have a right to know. I remember the meeting I had with the Taoiseach at the time, at which Deputy Adams was present, when the Taoiseach talked about the possible implications. The Government put out a story that court cases and convictions would be in jeopardy, which was a fog. Let us look back at the three or four days around the establishment of the Fennelly inquiry and ask some hard questions about what was happening in the Government. The Labour Party was not told anything. The former Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, was very clear that the Cabinet was not alerted to anything about the possible retirement of the Garda Commissioner. The Cabinet was not told about the then Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality going to the then Garda Commissioner's house. The world was going to collapse, judicially speaking. The safety of convictions was going to be in jeopardy due to the very strong, earth-shattering potential implications of the taping of phone calls in Garda stations. This was all trotted out.

The Bailey case has come and gone and the world has not collapsed. There were dark mutterings around the tapes related to that case and the repercussions if we showed certain things. There was much hype, much of it inspired by the Taoiseach. He established the inquiry on phone calls very quickly. Normally, for example in the Guerin inquiry, there is a scoping study to assess the situation before a full political investigation is established. It did not happen on this occasion. I grant that the Department of Justice and Equality was in a state of flux at the time and the Minister, Deputy Shatter, had one crisis after another and there were many controversies. The Taoiseach made up his mind and moved very quickly on the Sunday to establish the inquiry. He added on the piece about the Garda Commissioner and the letter he had sent to the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality afterwards and he claimed cover from the justice committee as a rationale for doing so, which I do not buy for one moment. There comes a time, especially 15 months on, to stop hiding about this. The Taoiseach and three or four other people know what happened. Is it too much to ask for the public and the House to be told the truth?

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