Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We have brought forward this motion to ensure that there is a particular focus put on the Department of Justice and Equality and the Minister through the inclusion of this in the terms of reference of the Charleton tribunal, given all that has come to light recently. Despite the fact the Government has said that all those mentioned in our motion are already included in the State entity clause, we believe that making specific reference to the Minister and Department officials would strengthen the tribunal and that it would and should be a welcome statement of intent on the part of the Minister and the Taoiseach.

We also propose to add a clause relating to the possibility of a cover-up, suppression or a deliberate failure to disclose central documents on behalf of the Department. We are all aware of what we have witnessed in recent days. A non-politically minded person might say that it is hard to credit what has come to light recently, but it is not. I refer to a Minister allowing something like this to happen; doing nothing to stop a nasty, ugly orchestrated smear and character assassination campaign of a person who was attempting to highlight wrongdoing; a Minister failing to challenge powerful agencies which were orchestrating that smear campaign against a whistleblower; and a Minister who was happy just to let it happen, to turn a blind eye, but why is that the case? It is because a Minister is confident of not being held to account.

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