Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to oppose the motion of confidence in the Government. We have all watched in shock, disgust and disbelief as events have unfolded and taken such a sinister turn over the past week. Sergeant Maurice McCabe has endured many years of maltreatment and sullying of his good name since he first stepped forward as a whistleblower. I absolutely agree that there should be a tribunal of inquiry with the widest necessary terms of reference. However, I also agree with my colleagues that a criminal investigation should run concurrently and that this investigation must be carried out by police officers from outside the State and perhaps co-ordinated by Europol. I also believe that the Garda Commissioner should step aside without prejudice for the duration of the inquiry.

I have never had confidence in this Government. In May 2016, just before I voted against it, I called it a sham Administration and said it was a temporary, ghost Administration. We know it is one that cannot and will not last. It is a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government with the spoils of office divided between the two parties and Deputy Micheál Martin and his colleagues as the chief puppeteers. As Fine Gael and the hapless so-called Independents stagger from crisis to crisis, the great issues facing our nation such as the shocking crisis of more than 100,000 people in desperate need of housing, the 632,000 citizens on hospital waiting lists and the 250,000 children living in poverty and the multifaceted profound challenges facing Ireland when Article 50 is triggered next month by Britain are completely overwhelming this weak Administration. The common thread through all the suffering of our people is the absolute refusal by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and the vested interests in Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil to abandon austerity and to raise and spend the necessary funding to give us the decent homes, hospitals and other caring public services our people deserve.

I commend my colleagues, Deputies Wallace and Clare Daly, for their courageous and steadfast support of Sergeant Maurice McCabe and the other Garda whistleblowers. In any advanced democracy we would think that Sergeant McCabe’s public spirited work would have been addressed by Government in fundamental reforms of policing by 2011 at the latest. The revelation by Sergeant McCabe and Garda John Wilson in 2012 and 2013 of the waiving of fixed charge notices and penalty points was an immense service to the Irish people and to saving lives on our roads. Given the many internal Garda reports and the work of Mr. Guerin, Mr. Justice Fennelly, Mr. Justice O’Higgins and Mr Justice larfhlaith O’Neill, it is astonishing that the Oireachtas is only now finally addressing the allegations of the smearing of Sergeant McCabe's name. The response of the current and of previous Governments to this sad saga has been an appalling shambles. The last week in particular shows clearly that it is time for the Government to go.

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