Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This is the establishment trying to put the lid back on the can of worms that has been opened. It is quite extraordinary. It was perfectly okay for the former Tánaiste to come to the House last week and for us to ask questions about these matters. There was no problem with the Charleton tribunal, although there had been some suggestions previous to that, mainly from the Government, that there might be. It turned out that there was not. Now, because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have decided to put a lid on this matter, suddenly legalese is being used to justify saying that we cannot ask questions as to why the Taoiseach protected the former Tánaiste at the weekend when he was in possession of the knowledge that she had misled the Dáil about the extent of her knowledge and that of her Department of the smear campaign against Maurice McCabe. Incidentally, we now also know that she did not get legal advice from the Attorney General at that time, which was her excuse for not acting on the information that this smear campaign was being conducted against Maurice McCabe at the O'Higgins commission. I do not buy these legal covers for the Government now trying to run away from the questions that hang over the Taoiseach and the current Minister for Justice and Equality in the context of his stance and his failure to disclose the information that he had about this matter and in respect of the questions that still remain for the former Tánaiste.

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