Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Callaghan. There are a lot of questions there.

I want to be absolutely clear that the first time that I knew about the email was last Thursday when I was in contact with the Department. As I have said on the record, that was the first time that I heard that this email existed - the very first time.

Deputy O'Callaghan is absolutely inaccurate in stating that I did not act on concerns. That is completely and utterly inaccurate. I have made it very clear that there was no role for me in the legal strategy. Indeed, many Members of this House in the course of the questions to me suggested, contrary to what Deputy O'Callaghan stated, that I should have become involved in the legal strategy in some way. I could not do that and the legal advice yesterday confirmed that once again.

But to suggest that I did nothing about whistleblowers during my time as Minister for Justice and Equality is completely wrong. The very first thing I did was I met Maurice McCabe and his wife, Lorraine. I reread the minutes of that meeting this morning, and what I said to Maurice McCabe and what he said to me, and what his wife outlined to me. I was the first Minister for Justice and Equality who ever met - I think this is accurate - a serving member of An Garda Síochána to discuss an issue like this and I did it because I wanted to hear directly what the concerns were so that I would act properly in relation to them during the course of my tenure.

What I then did was I acted in a whole range of areas to deal with concerns that had arisen. I could not be involved in the legal strategy. Referring back to that email in terms of action I could take, at one level that is about the legal strategy. However, what I did do as a Government Minister was set the tone, I took the actions and I initiated a whole range of initiatives. One of the first things I did in order to make sure that whistle-blowing was dealt with more seriously was raise my attitude to it publicly. I raised it privately with An Garda Síochána. I raised it with the management of the Department of Justice and Equality on a continuous basis.

One of the first things I did, which, by the way, had been delayed from 2005, was I said it was really important that there was ethics legislation in An Garda Síochána. I asked the Policing Authority to work on that within a year, I put it into the legislation, so that whistleblowers would be dealt with properly within An Garda Síochána. If Deputy O'Callaghan reads that ethics report and the ethics code of practice, he will see there is a specific issue in it about speaking out and how whistleblowers who raise complaints should be dealt with within An Garda Síochána.

Every time an issue came up, I made sure that it was dealt with. I referred it to the proper place. Instead of discussing these issues here in this House, as we are, while a Charleton tribunal sits to look at all of these issues and in some ways we try and run a parallel process, I set up an independent Policing Authority and I referred the policy of whistleblowers to that authority so that it could look at how it was proceeding and how it needed to change it. I made it very clear the Government wanted the strongest policy possible in relation to whistleblowers.

Every time an issue was raised in this House in regard to the treatment of whistleblowers by An Garda Síochána, I was astonished at some of the things that were said here and I continually raised them with my officials to raise with the management of An Garda Síochána, and I raised them myself. I continually demanded that they were dealt with properly.

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