Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Government and the House, I thank Mr. Justice Charleton and the members of his team for the work they did on the disclosures tribunal. I think it is a really good report. The tribunal did its work in an expeditious amount of time. Mr. Justice Charleton's findings are eloquent. My first response today, which is the same as my first response last week, is to thank Maurice McCabe. I have always believed that he is a distinguished public servant. I hope the report will give him and Lorraine and their family some comfort into the future. Sergeant McCabe was in touch with me over the weekend to thank me for my support of him. I was in touch with him again to express my view that he has done enormous service to the State and to wish him and Lorraine the best into the future.

The Government's response to the Charleton report has to be about Tusla and about Garda reform. The Minister, Deputy Flanagan, is very much leading up our whole programme of Garda reform. A new Garda Commissioner is in place. He will be enabled to bring in a new management team around him. We now have additional resources for the Garda. There is more money and more equipment. There are more gardaí. We have a plan, as set out by Kathleen O'Toole in her commission report. We are very determined to follow through on what has been recommended by Mr. Justice Charleton.

The same of course applies to Tusla. The tribunal was extremely critical of Tusla's engagement with it. We discussed this at the Cabinet today. The Minister, Deputy Zappone, has written to and spoken with the chair of Tusla to express her concerns regarding the adverse recommendations and commentaries in respect of Tusla. She will meet the board of Tusla shortly to underline the need to deal with these issues and the other serious shortcomings that have been identified in the report with regard to Tusla. We believe the apology that Tusla has made to the McCabe family is the very least that can be expected. We will need to see more done to improve the situation at Tusla.

As I have said, the Government intends to respond to the Charleton report by introducing further Garda reform and by helping to fix Tusla. I believe Members of the Oireachtas need to respond to the report as well. In relation to Keith Harrison, a number of Members of this House raised false allegations in this House and in doing so gave them credibility. Those allegations were taken up by the media, which took them to be true even though they were not. That caused a lot of damage and a lot of hurt to some innocent gardaí and eventually cost the State a lot of money. The point I would make about this section of the tribunal is that some Members of this House need to correct the record with regard to what they said about Keith Harrison.

An allegation was made by a party leader that the former Garda Commissioner, Nóirín O'Sullivan, was part of a conspiracy to smear Maurice McCabe.

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