Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This sorry episode has seen the Secretary General, Mr. Noel Waters, resign from his position with immediate effect. He is the second Secretary General to resign in recent years, a fact which of itself raises alarm about the state of play in the Department. His resignation letter is quite remarkable. It states: "The Department has been subject to a barrage of unwarranted criticism in recent days and most particularly today." He goes on to speak about things that were said in the Dáil. I know that there are many committed members of staff in the Department; that is not questioned, but the Department for which he is responsible failed to find several pieces of key documentation relevant to the Charleton tribunal, despite two processes which should have required a deep scouring of files. It caused the Taoiseach to mislead the Dáil three times in a week and to put the wrong facts on the record. How can the Minister stand over this? How can he explain it? Does he accept that such criticism, some of which came from the seat in which he is sitting, was entirely warranted?

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