Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Deputy Ó Laoghaire on bringing the motion to the floor of the House. I start by reading a statement released by the McCabe family earlier this year. I appeal to the House to listen to it because it is important. Please God, it might sway some of the doubters. It states:

We have endured eight years of great suffering, private nightmare, public defamation and state vilification arising solely from the determination of Maurice to ensure that the Garda Síochána adheres to decent and appropriate standards of policing in its dealings with the Irish people.

Our personal lives and our family life, and the lives of our five children, have been systematically attacked in a number of ways by agencies of the Irish state and by people working for the state in those agencies ...

We have also been the subject of a long and sustained campaign to destroy our characters in the eyes of the public and public representatives and in the eyes of the media.

The lesson from this statement, the lesson from the Garda campaign against Sergeant McCabe and his family and the lesson from State and Government complicity in this campaign is as follows. People who challenge this State or any of its pillars, or seeks to shine a light into dark corners to demand justice or truth should be prepared for an onslaught. They should be prepared to be ignored, sidelined and treated with suspicion. If that does not work, they should be prepared to have their careers and personal and public lives destroyed and the very worst slurs attached to their name, with all the power that the State has to enforce this.

This is why the Charleton tribunal is so important and why it must be empowered to turn every stone necessary. The lesson so viciously taught to the Irish people must be learned. The suffering of Sergeant McCabe must be undone. In so doing this saga must be ended and with it the corruption it covered up. The tribunal must be allowed to bring out the truth and identify the real offenders and conspirators from the lowest garda right up to the Cabinet table if necessary.

I again commend Deputy Ó Laoghaire on this. We need the terms of reference amended. Deputies have listened to the McCabes' testimony; this country is corrupt.

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