Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It would be interesting to hear the views of every party on whether other gardaí who have suffered in this way should be included in the terms of reference of the tribunal of inquiry. While this is a tough call, if the Dáil were to decide collectively such cases should be included, it would be unwise to leave the matter to the judge. It may be better for the House to give direction on the terms of reference. As we did not have the meeting this morning, I am uncertain as to whether this could be done in time for a meeting of the Cabinet tomorrow.

The wider question of trust in government is at the centre of this issue. I recall difficult times in government. When a ministerial adviser indicates to an adviser to the Taoiseach in advance of a Cabinet meeting that a matter is being looked at, it sets off red lights. If officials or advisers to the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs informed the Taoiseach's officials that the Minister was setting up a meeting with Maurice McCabe, I cannot understand how the matter did not become a subject for discussion at the subsequent Cabinet meeting. The way the system was set up in the days when Deputy Brendan Howlin was a Minister was that advisers iron out or signal difficulties in advance. Under this system, all the red lights would go off in any functioning Government to indicate that this issue would have to be discussed at Cabinet.

While I do not wish to get into who said what and where, is there a difference between the current Cabinet and previous Cabinets of which the Taoiseach was a member? Is the difficulty that we have a minority Government which includes a number of different Independents? Is this a different experience from the experience of having two parties in government? Is that the reason the Cabinet is not having proper debates, this issue was not tackled by the Cabinet and the Dáil is in disarray as a result?

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