Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's response has actually made the situation worse in light of the sequence of events which we know of thanks to the work of RTÉ in unearthing some of the emails. We know that the legal advice of the Attorney General did not state that the report could not be published in full. It is very clear from the email of 13 November that the Attorney General said publication of the report would be possible if certain steps were followed. It is equally obvious from the correspondence that the mechanisms suggested by the Department to achieve this goal were actually ignored by the management of Oberstown. The only person who commented, or was asked to comment, on the report was the director, who had had extensive meetings with the two reviewers about it already. If there were concerns about fair procedures, to whom were they supposed to apply? It looks like the board and the chair of the board threatened resignations if the Minister proceeded with the course of action she recommended.

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