Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to quote from the programme for Government which commits the Government parties to bring an end to the "unacceptable executive practice where no record is kept of ministerial involvement with an issue and resulting decisions".

I am also reminded of the Taoiseach's first speech in the House as Taoiseach, when he told us and the people of the State:

today I enter into a covenant with the Irish people. In these times of crisis, full of many unknowns, honesty is not alone our best policy but our only policy. The new Government will tell the people the truth regardless of how unwelcome or difficult that might be. We will tell it constantly and unreservedly.

However, there has been no effort to keep this in spirit or in practice or to bring it into law.

There are a number of controversial examples of this, including the one which has just been cited of the crucial meeting involving the Taoiseach and the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality before he was dispatched to the home of the former Garda Commissioner. There are various takes and versions of what happened at that meeting. The Tánaiste of the day, Deputy Gilmore, stated the Taoiseach told him it was his position that he may not be able to express confidence in the Commissioner at the following day's Cabinet meeting. The Taoiseach denies this. There is no minute to verify which one of them is telling the truth. Was it a deliberate act that no minute was taken? Was a decision taken, even informally, that it would not be minuted or was it just bad practice? Did someone forget to do it? We also have the 23 meetings on Irish Water that took place between Bord Gáis Éireann and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government between April and September 2012. Of these 23 meetings, only ten had minutes and of these five amounted to one typed page. The former Minister, Phil Hogan, had two meetings with-----

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