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

Let me say one thing to the Deputy. My party has always believed in due process and I have always believed in due process. She can speak for her own party in regard to how it handles issues that arise but I can speak for my party, and I have always followed the principle of natural justice and due process.

When the issue emerged in regard to Maurice McCabe and his treatment with An Garda Síochána, and I am not speaking to any script, as the Deputy can see, I am responding to the questions that are being asked here, and I can respond to them fully because I am telling the full truth about the situation, as I had experience and knowledge of it in regard to this whole episode, the email spoke about a legal strategy. Sergeant McCabe was represented at the O'Higgins commission. Obviously, he had full legal representation and his legal rights were being protected there. This email came in the context of the establishment and the work of a commission that was actively under way. What I have made clear is where I had responsibility as a Minister in regard to whistleblowing, in the same way that the previous Government, which was the first Government to act, under the then Minister, Deputy Howlin, brought in the protected disclosures, I sent that protected disclosure policy from the Garda, as I have already said, over to the Policing Authority. What emerged in that email was about an approach that counsel had taken. We know that, subsequently, there was further clarification about that counsel's role and the role of the Garda Commissioner. In fact, much more detail, which I was not aware of, emerged a year later, which is what I was referring to when I spoke to the Taoiseach. I was referring to all of the information that came out later.

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