Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am as dissatisfied about all of this as is the Deputy. He may not believe that but I really am. This is not the way I want to see Parliament or Government operate and these are not the kind of issues on which I want to focus. In particular, I want to focus on the important negotiations regarding Brexit. An important summit is coming up in only two weeks' time and I have been unable to give that any of my attention for the past number of days. I can assure the Deputy that I do not want things to continue to go on the way they have been going on for the past number of years.

It is three years since I used the word "distinguished" to describe Maurice McCabe in contrast to the words used by the then Commissioner and it is three years since I described the Department of Justice and Equality as not being fit for purpose. As I found out as both a doctor and a politician, diagnosis is a damned sight easier than surgery and the cure. It is not difficult to identify some of the obvious problems that exist in our country and in some deep parts of our State.

Identifying them is one thing, but trying to get a grip on them, trying to find out which allegations are true and which are not, and trying to deal with those fundamental problems is a real struggle. It is bedevilling all of us who have the privilege of holding Executive office.

There are things we have done. We have established the Policing Authority, which is holding the Garda to a new level of accountability. When Josephine Feehily and her group are fully up and running, they will hold the Garda to account in a way that has never been done before. The Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland has been established under Kathleen O'Toole and I look forward to its interim and full recommendations.

We set up a full tribunal, the Charleton tribunal, which can look into all of these matters. I look forward to the tribunal having its hearings. It will report on its first module, the Harrison module, this week or next. Its reports are already coming and I look forward to reporting on the McCabe module in the new year.

The Toland report on reform of the Department of Justice and Equality is partially implemented. I announced today that we will set up a change management board, with two or three change management experts who will monitor the full implementation of that report. I have ordered today an external inquiry to answer the question as to why these emails were not found sooner and why they were not sent on to the tribunal. If they were found as a result of a trawl that I ordered last week, they should have been found many months ago when they were required under discovery by the tribunal.

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