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

How did the Taoiseach know then that the commission would cover it? Mr. Justice Charleton's conclusion is retrospective. The Taoiseach did not know the detail of the allegations in the Tusla file at the time. Therefore, it begs the question as to how anybody in the Cabinet knew it would cover the Tusla file and the allegations contained within it. The Minister, Deputy Zappone, said she would have appreciated if there was advance circulation of memos.

I deduced from this that the protected disclosure memo was never circulated to other Cabinet Ministers in advance. The Taoiseach can correct me if I am wrong. Therefore, it begs the question as to how anybody knew. It seems an extraordinary display of Cabinet telepathy at work that each individual Minister deduced individually that this was somehow going to cover something that nobody knew anything about other than, allegedly, the Minister, Deputy Zappone, in terms of the detail and content of the allegations contained in the Tusla file. As we now know, they were false allegations against Maurice McCabe.

A question was asked yesterday and a very straightforward answer can come from the Department of Justice and Equality and the Minister for Justice and Equality. Did the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality or senior officials in the Department know about the existence of the Tusla file and the allegations within it before they circulated or sent a memo, via the Minister, on the protected disclosure to the Cabinet? This is very important. We should get a clear "Yes" or "No" answer on whether they did because the truth will come out at some stage. We need a candid explanation in order to explain the background.

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