Dáil debates

Wednesday, 15 February 2017

Confidence in Government: Motion

 

6:25 pm

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

The issue which has dominated debate during the past week touches on points fundamental to the functioning of our Republic. Public faith in the integrity of State agencies in general, and the police force in particular, is an essential foundation for democratic institutions. From the moment I was approached, almost exactly three years ago, about serious allegations made by Sergeant Maurice McCabe, my party's position has been very clear. The truth must be established and justice must be done. While there has been a constant effort by one party in this House to promote snide comments about our actions, both in here and through its legion of online trolls, we have been consistent in responding to every substantive piece of information we have received. We have refused to play politics with this issue. We have pushed for and secured independent inquiries and have rejected efforts, particularly by the last Government, to declare the matter closed. Most important, we have maintained ongoing contact to ensure we respected the wishes of those who have suffered most in this scandal.

There is no question but that the Government has, especially over the past week, handled this matter in a casual and an incompetent manner. The Taoiseach and his Ministers failed to react with appropriate concern when deeply disturbing information was brought to their attention concerning the possible use of a State agency to terrorise an honourable servant of the State. Their complacency in respect of ensuring this matter would be fully investigated by the proposed inquiry is appalling and is clearly at the heart of its ongoing failure to respond to the many ways in which it was informed about the Tusla file. While it is not central to the substantive issue, we have no doubt that the Tánaiste knew from multiple sources, including a direct conversation with Deputy O'Callaghan, that requests to broaden the inquiry's terms of reference were specifically founded on the need to include the Tusla file. Just as when they met each other, members of the Government may have talked but appear never to have listened.

During the last Government, there was clear and obvious evidence of efforts to bury this scandal. While many in Fine Gael and the Labour Party worked hard to lay all the blame on the former Minister for Justice, they happily went along with the earlier attempts to minimise the importance of the allegations and they dismissed the people making them. In contrast we have, as of yet, no evidence that this Government has acted in bad faith in its discussions concerning the scope of the inquiry. There is insurmountable evidence of complacency and incompetence but there has been no attempt to block the establishment of an inquiry with the powers and terms of reference required to establish the truth and provide justice. The Taoiseach has confirmed to me that he is willing to support an inquiry of the type that Sergeant McCabe is correctly calling for.

If the concern of Deputies is genuinely to deal with this scandal the question before us should deal with the form, terms of reference and funding of an inquiry. The question before us is not how we get justice for Maurice McCabe and others, however. It is about whether we should collapse the Government and the Dáil in order to have a general election in the next few weeks. The sole motivation behind putting this question is party politics. As we have seen recently in the North, at every given moment Sinn Féin's primary concern is promoting the interests of the provisional movement. When it comes across an issue it looks for ways to exploit it rather than to address it. In the case of the Assembly, it took advantage of an undoubted scandal about an out-of-control scheme which it had known about for a year and which had been made worse by its active promotion by the party's new Northern leader. Instead of securing an immediate inquiry, it secured an immediate election. In a vote of confidence in First Minister, Arlene Foster, on 19 December, Sinn Féin initially abstained but two weeks later, it collapsed the Assembly and the Executive. As a result, the people of Northern Ireland will have to vote relying on political charges, rather than a definitive and independent review. The people of Northern Ireland must also go without a voice in critical Brexit discussions and in discussions on the action to take in regard to the hospital crisis, which is their No. 1 concern.

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