Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----campaign of slander against an Irish citizen by the head of our police force. The extraordinary conclusions reached in the Charleton report are quite shattering and go to the core of our justice system. If we are honest, none of us could have comprehended that such a thing could happen. The overwhelming majority of the report focuses on that matter and on the failures of our national child protection agency, particularly the shocking manner in which it treated the McCabe family when it failed to deal with a report of rape and sexual abuse that had been completely falsely attributed to Mr. McCabe. It is quite shocking that this was left in the north-eastern police division for three years without being corrected. I think those two issues go to the core of what has emanated from Charleton so far.

I accept that the Taoiseach and others have a position on the former Tánaiste. He believes she was grievously wronged and should still be in the Cabinet. She is not still in the Cabinet. The fundamental point is that Deputy Fitzgerald claimed at the time that she had no knowledge of events of which it turned out she had clear knowledge. That was the problem. If questions that were tabled in the Dáil had been answered properly, transparently and honestly, we would not be where we are. The Taoiseach will recall that he admitted to the Dáil that it had been misled and he apologised for that. Is it now his position that it is okay for Ministers to fail to give accurate information to him or to the Dáil? The trawl that was initiated by the Taoiseach on foot of the failure to answer questions in this House led to the discovery of emails that we would never otherwise have found out about and Mr. Justice Charleton would not otherwise have received. There is nothing personal in any of this. Dáil Éireann holds Ministers to account. That is its fundamental role. As the Taoiseach knows well, the reasons I have given led to the resignation of the former Tánaiste. The issues in question were not explicitly addressed by the tribunal.

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