David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, has outlined, the Government is opposing this motion on two primary grounds. In the first instance, it is not clear what the party proposing the motion intends should be done or where the current terms of reference are, presumably, deficient. Second, the Government believes the terms of the reference of the tribunal, which this House agreed to last February, are sufficiently broad to cover the matters that have arisen in recent days. I might add that the Government fully supports the work of the tribunal and has co-operated with it and will continue to do so.

In coming to this view, the Government is having regard to terms of reference (e) and (h), which provide as follows: paragraph (e) mandates the tribunal "To investigate whether the false allegations of sexual abuse or any other unjustified grounds were inappropriately relied upon by Commissioner O'Sullivan to discredit Sergeant Maurice McCabe at the Commission of Investigation into Certain Matters in the Cavan/Monaghan district under the Chairmanship of Mr. Justice Kevin O'Higgins". Paragraph (h) requires it:

To investigate contacts between members of An Garda Síochána and:

Media and broadcasting personnel,

members of the Government,

TUSLA,

Health Service Executive,

any other State entities

or any relevant person that the Sole Member may deem necessary to carry out his work relevant to the matter set out [a], [b], [c], [d], [e] and [f] ... [of the terms of reference].

These paragraphs contain mainly allegations that senior gardaí sought to discredit Sergeant McCabe.

The combined effect of these terms of reference could be viewed as encompassing examination of any communications between the Department of Justice and Equality, Ministers for Justice and Equality past and present, the Attorney General's office and An Garda Síochána regarding "legal strategy", which is presumably what the motion before the House is concerned with.

Furthermore, it is not entirely clear what is meant by "recent revelations" in the motion. This is rather opaque and it is not at all clear as to what any additional terms of reference might contain, nor is it clear what they mean in the context of a tribunal which was appointed to examine matters of urgent public importance.

Last week the tribunal issued a public notice in which it stated that it would sit from Monday, 8 January in relation to those terms of reference dealing with the allegations that senior gardaí sought to discredit Sergeant Maurice McCabe. The public notice made it clear that the tribunal is mandated by paragraph (h) of its terms of reference to investigate contacts between members of the Garda and members of the Government and any relevant person, among others, which it considers necessary to carry out its work. This notice also set out in broad terms how the tribunal intends to approach this aspect of its work.

I want to make one further comment in regard to the tribunal's notice but before doing so I remind the House that my Department, having carried out a search of email correspondence following the tabling of a number of parliamentary questions, itself recovered the emails which have generated such controversy and which led, wrongly in my view, to the Tánaiste having to resign as Tánaiste and a member of the Government.

Those emails have been disclosed to the tribunal and it is now for the tribunal to decide how to proceed in regard to them. Let me be clear about one thing: my Department has complied fully with the discovery orders issued to it by the tribunal. Discovery orders were issued by the tribunal in February, April and September. These orders were complied with and the relevant documents were forwarded to the tribunal in February, May and September 2017.

For the benefit of the House I can say that the discovery orders concerned records of the O’Higgins Commission of Investigation, documents related to two cases which had been considered by the Independent Review Mechanism, a copy of a representation to the then Minister which referenced Sergeant McCabe, a report of a Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, investigation into a complaint that a Garda investigation of an alleged serious assault was not properly carried out and records related to the allegation of contacts between the gardaí and Tusla in relation to Garda Keith Harrison.

The Department has also made extensive voluntary disclosure of other matters, including three protected disclosures, reports from the Garda Commissioner under section 41 of the Garda Síochána Act and, most recently, the two email threads that were uncovered following a trawl of documents in the Department.

However, having regard to recent events, I know that both the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, and I would be very happy to have the Department undertake any further inquiries or further scrutiny which may be required. I have no evidence of any outstanding issues. I would be happy to raise this with senior officials in my Department tomorrow.

In the course of his statement in this House yesterday evening, the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, undertook in response to a question from Deputy Harty to establish the position in relation to discovery made by my Department to the disclosures tribunal in respect of Keith Harrison. I am advised that the Department of Justice and Equality has complied fully with a discovery order made by the tribunal in the context of its inquiry into matters covered by term of reference (n) investigating contacts between members of An Garda Síochána and Tusla in relation to Garda Keith Harrison. The tribunal announced last week that it would be publishing its report on that module this week.

In light of that, it was clearly open to Mr. Justice Charleton to indicate in the tribunal’s public notice whether the tribunal considered that its terms of reference were broad enough to allow it to investigate the matters which have lately been the subject of comment in this House and outside. No such suggestion was made. I should mention in this regard that the legislation covering the operation of tribunals allows for the terms of reference to be amended either at the request of the tribunal or following consultation with the tribunal.

I am convinced, in the circumstances, that the best approach is to allow the tribunal to get on with its work unburdened with unnecessary amendment of its terms of reference. Mr. Justice Charleton has been very assiduous in his work to date and the House owes him a debt of gratitude for the expedition with which he is going about the job. In that regard I have no doubt that if he determines that the terms of reference are inadequate to allow him to investigate the issues thoroughly and reach solid conclusions, he will bring that to the attention of the Clerk of the House.

Accordingly, I oppose the motion before us.

I have been working with the Department of Justice and Equality for quite a number of years in my previous role as chairman of a committee and as a Minister of State.

Obviously, the Department is not working. I do not think any agency or Department is working to the extent that it cannot be improved. It is true that the Department of Justice and Equality has made some mistakes. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, made a comprehensive speech to that effect in the House yesterday evening. I ask Deputies to reflect very carefully on their language. I take issue with some of the language I have heard used with reference to the Department of Justice and Equality during this afternoon's debate. Deputies should reflect carefully on their espousal of hysterical populism, which is very different from an expression of frustration about certain failings.

The Department of Justice and Equality is a vast Department. In my experience, its staff are hard-working and diligent public servants. They are citizens of this State who are loyal to this State. They work extremely hard. In other jurisdictions, the areas of responsibility of our Department of Justice and Equality are divided among two or even three departments. Our Department has grown and grown for historical reasons. Issues like insolvency are often dealt with by the Department of Justice and Equality and can become very big. I have responsibility for the question of refugees and asylum seekers, which started off as a small issue a number of years ago but has now become a vast issue and is continuing to grow. The Department now has many more agencies than it previously did.

We have to look at what has arisen in this respect. I refer to the size and volume of work being done by hard-working and diligent civil servants who are citizens of this country. They are very careful about the work they do. They work very hard. They often go above and beyond the call of duty. I have said that here previously. I know them and other Deputies here know them as well. We should be careful about casting aspersions. Instead, we should be looking at how we can change matters to improve the efficiency of the Department and ensure mistakes and errors of this nature do not occur again. Steps are being taken to get to the bottom of the issues that have arisen. The tribunal of inquiry is probably the strongest method we have in our armoury to get to the bottom of such issues. We should leave the issues to the tribunal. That is what we set it up for. That is its purpose. We need to let it get on with its job. We may have other actions to take when it reports. I thank the House.

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