Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is an unfortunate fact that over recent weeks, the Taoiseach has given inaccurate information to this House twice. Both occasions related to the Department of Justice and Equality and both now require explanations from the Taoiseach. The first occasion related to the staffing of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. The Taoiseach told the House in September on the advice of the Department of Justice and Equality that the role of the detective inspector had been filled on a part-time basis while recruitment of a full-time person was under way. This was not true. The person the Taoiseach referred to did not fall under the management of the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. In truth, that vacancy remains unfilled more than a year after it arose. I ask the Taoiseach to correct his statement to the Dáil on that matter.

Second, and potentially more seriously, the Taoiseach made comments to me in this House last week when I was trying to get information that the series of questions posed by Deputy Alan Kelly failed to get from the Department of Justice and Equality and its Minister. The Taoiseach stated the Tánaiste had informed him she only became aware of the legal strategy against Sergeant McCabe around the time it entered the public domain. That is, quite simply, not true and this is not a small matter. The legal strategy was designed to fundamentally discredit Sergeant Maurice McCabe and subvert the course of justice, a matter of enormous importance. This good man could have been destroyed. The strategy was deployed behind closed doors from where it could not be revealed by Sergeant McCabe under threat of criminal sanction. At the same time the Garda Commissioner was instructing her lawyers to discredit Sergeant McCabe, she and the Tánaiste were publicly lauding him. The strategy was fundamentally dishonest.

If the Tánaiste knew even in general terms, as we have now been told, what exactly does that mean? Will the Taoiseach produce the email partially quoted by the Tánaiste on the RTÉ news programme at 1 p.m.? Any Minister being told in any terms of a development as potentially explosive as this would say bluntly, "tell me specifically what happened and why".

That such an email resulted in no action, and cannot even be recalled, is simply not credible. Last week the Taoiseach's view was that the Tánaiste did not know about this and therefore could not be asked anything about it. We are now being asked to accept that she was told by email that an allegation of a serious crime had been part of the legal strategy, yet she still did nothing. That any Minister for Justice and Equality would fail to examine an issue that so fundamentally goes to the heart of the administration of justice in this State is troubling. That the Tánaiste appears to have mislead the Taoiseach last week on this matter speaks to the functioning of Government itself.

These are serious matters. Will the Taoiseach outline the contacts that he has had with the Tánaiste and the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality to ensure that questions asked in this House are fully and accurately answered? Will he explain how something as serious as this could have reached the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality's desk without triggering questions or actions of any kind?

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