Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am also delighted to be able to speak on the motion. I will read it into the record:

That Dáil Éireann believes that a revision of the terms of reference of the Tribunal of Inquiry into protected disclosures made under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 and certain other matters (the 'Charleton Tribunal') is required and should take place to take account of the recent revelations regarding the Department of Justice and Equality, Ministers for Justice and Equality past and present, the Attorney General's Office and An Garda Síochána.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Sinn Féin motion. It is timely and necessary given what we have learnt in recent days about the level of dysfunctionality within the Department of Justice and Equality. I know the Minister might say that he is learning as well but we all need to learn and learn very fast. I must say, however, that while we can and should criticise the Department for its more obvious failings, it would be reprehensible to use this crisis as a opportunity to tarnish vindictively or otherwise the good name of the majority of the staff in that Department. I lay the blame squarely at the top. I know the Secretary General has brought forward his retirement. I wish him well but it is not very helpful to the Minister. Regardless of whether we like it or not, the culture of so many organisations is usually a top-down process. It is the case with all organisations in this country. They forget about the ordinary people and where they came from and many of them forget about public service when they get so high up and so high and mighty. The political realities that the Department had to deal with over the past 40 years in terms of threats from the Provisional movement, loyalist gangsters and all other crime made it necessary for a legitimate level of secrecy to exist. We can all understand that. We still need that secrecy for certain operations to deal with the thugs who are robbing, marauding and destroying the lives of so many families in this country. We can all understand why that was needed. However, it should have become apparent a long time ago that the need for such levels of secrecy had passed and it was time for the Department to adapt itself to a new culture of transparency and open accountability and not to be dragged kicking and screaming around the place in this House and elsewhere.

I believe that what this motion is broadly seeking to achieve can only be a good thing. Let us cast the net as wide as possible in terms of gaining the kind of insight we need regarding what really went on and who knew what and when. It is necessary for us to find that out and that Mr. Justice Charleton gets all the information and is allowed to do his job and that such a situation would never arise again whereby very senior Department officials - I am not saying they found or discovered these things recently - would refuse to give full disclosure after being requested to do so by Mr. Justice Charleton and others. Someone asked whether it involved breaking the law. I think it did involve breaking the law. If it was accidental, it did not involve breaking any law but it could not be accidental. These kind of accidents do not happen. It is a deliberate denial of co-operation with what is required.

The original form of the motion is not the one we are debating. One of the terms of reference was to examine the role of Tusla. It originally sought in clause D to investigate the creation, distribution and use by Tusla of a file containing false allegations of sexual abuse against Sergeant Maurice McCabe that was allegedly sent to the Garda in 2013. It beggars belief that the apology was delivered to the wrong door. It would not be written in a Mills and Boon novel. It is bizarre. We are back again to the days of GUBU which I remember in the early 1980s. This is certainly GUBU. I accept that we are now dealing with an amended form of the motion. However, it is vital that questions such as the one about Tusla are explored further. Tusla is an organisation in which I have very little faith. It has been cut off from the HSE like the Rock of Gibraltar; it has been cut off and left to its own devices and, in many cases that come before me, without much accountability. It is not within the remit of the Minister, Deputy Charles Flanagan - thankfully, says he. This may be something the tribunal is examining, but the role of Tusla in the current debacle demands further scrutiny. We must also remember that we are here not only because of an alleged failure of duty but also because of the systemic lack of accountability. It could not be called anything other than systemic. There is no accountability, as I have been preaching for a number of years.

Some years ago I talked about the power of the House, to which the banks are oblivious. They do not care because we are inept at passing legislation to deal with them and what they have done. The senior officials are running the show. Ministers come and go and the officials are still the bosses. Incidentally, if I go back to the days of the late Brian Lenihan - God rest him - when the pension levy was introduced, they were the only cohort of people who escaped it. I brought it to his notice and he thanked me at a Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting for raising the matter because he had been told there was only a small cohort of 70 which ended up nearer to 1,000. They got away with not paying the pension levy when every other unfortunate taxpayer had to pay it. Why was that? It was because they had their hands on the handlebars of power. One would have needed a hammer and chisel or a jackhammer to take them off it. There is no accountability; they are accountable to no one.

We will have to reach a situation where the Secretary General will be elected by the people; otherwise we will have no accountability. They can send false information. They can send emails to tell people that it is a very serious matter but that no action is required. I do not believe it and have no ill-will against the former Tánaiste, but I do not believe it about something that serious. I have seen Ministers and Taoisigh taking very urgent calls. They have to deal with such issues, unless they are really blasé about it. They have to write the email, tick the boxes and tell themselves that they have done their jobs. It is a case of pass the parcel and there being no accountability. It is time people were held accountable. They should not be heading off with their fat pensions and then brought back to sit on interview boards or placed on different boards. The system is sick, broken and disgusting and must be changed. I wish the Minister well in that regard and hope he will have the stamina for it. He has been around here long enough to know where they are hiding, where the deadwood is and where the good people are. He should promote the right people. There should not be cronyism and there should be no party political people. We complain about the Minister, Deputy Shane Ross, but he was right when he wrote about the untouchables. They are here with us every day and one cannot say "Boo" to them. They have all the new rules, regulations and statutory instruments that they print. When we receive them from the European Union, they add about ten more statutory instruments to keep themselves in business. They create quangos for their friends. It is a rotting, stinking, disgusting culture. There are many good people in all Departments and organisations, but the cream that has risen to the top is not interested in serving Ireland. We are coming up to the centenary of the War of Independence. I said a while ago that if they were to come back, I know where they would start shooting and it would not be at people from another country, which I am not advocating.

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