Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Let me deal with that. I was a member of the last justice reform committee. The Government does not have at its meetings the Garda Commissioner, the chairperson of the Policing Authority or the senior administrators in the Department of Justice and Equality, all of whom should have been there to answer questions of key Ministers in advance of any decisions being made at Cabinet. Did the Taoiseach not see it as appropriate to convene a meeting where all those principals would be present to answer questions such as the one just asked by Deputy Martin? Before the Cabinet could come to profound decisions such as whether to have a Patten-style root and branch commission, surely the precursor would have been to have at least one but probably a series of meetings of the Cabinet sub-committee asking the views of the Policing Authority, asking the Commissioner questions directly and asking the Department of Justice and Equality those questions. I welcome the Taoiseach's response this morning that he will shortly publish an implementation plan. However, does he agree that in the interim we also need amendments to the powers of the Policing Authority to make directions on reform to be implemented by An Garda Síochána?

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