Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Justice and Equality is looking at the question of terms of reference for the inquiry, and whether it is possible to extend it to cater for other whistleblowers or whatever.

In respect of the Deputy's question, he has outlined the sequence of events. On 24 January, one of the officials in the office of the Minister, Deputy Zappone, told my Office that she intended to meet Sergeant McCabe and that was relayed to me. On 7 February, in a brief informal conversation as the Cabinet meeting of that day was about to commence, the Minister, Deputy Zappone, mentioned to me that she had met Sergeant McCabe about false allegations of sexual abuse that had been made about him to Tusla. She did not go into the details of that conversation with Sergeant and Mrs McCabe or the gross mishandling of the issue with Tusla.

It is absolutely clear to me that allegations of a false nature would be fully covered by Mr. Justice O'Neill's draft terms of reference as allegations of criminal misconduct against Sergeant McCabe and are at the core of the proposed commission's remit. That was confirmed by Mr. Justice Charleton, who said all of the allegations revealed in the "Prime Time" programme are, in fact, covered by the original draft terms of reference. Paragraph (b) refers to the fact the protected disclosure sent in by Superintendent Taylor refers directly to an allegation of criminal misconduct made against Sergeant McCabe and this was the root cause of his agenda.

Clearly, we were looking at the terms of reference, we had examined the terms of reference and they were produced and presented by Mr. Justice O'Neill. Central to that was an allegation of criminal misconduct made against Sergeant McCabe. Obviously, the discussion between the Minister and Sergeant McCabe dealt with that area. The Minister did not make me aware of the existence of a Tusla file and did not comment in any detail on the conversation she had with Sergeant McCabe.

See this speech in context