Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish the former Minister, Deputy Cowen, any ill will. It is a very difficult day for him and his family but the Taoiseach has set a record as regards firing a Minister in the quickest time ever - 17 days. It is quite confusing listening to the Taoiseach's contribution now and what he has said over the past week or two because not an awful lot has changed since 3 July when the story broke and the Taoiseach's awareness of "issues". He should not mind the semantics. The issues surrounding what was in the public domain have not changed dramatically. I feel what has changed is the political consequences for the Taoiseach, and that is worrying. The information regarding what happened and the Taoiseach's awareness of it at some level has not changed; what has changed is the Taoiseach's interpretation of this. The executive summary is that as long as it was not going to cause a huge issue for the Taoiseach politically, then the Minister, Deputy Cowen, could stay, but if it was, he could not. It was fine, as long as the additional information that came out over the weekend in The Sunday Times and then in theIrish Independentwas not in the public domain and as long as it was secret but then once it all came out, it was not. I am sad to say it raises questions about the Taoiseach's judgment; it really does. It raises questions also about what the Taoiseach said. He stated: "I spoke to the Minister, Deputy Cowen, the weekend before last and he adamantly denied any suggestion or implication that he evaded or attempted to avoid a checkpoint." To the Taoiseach's knowledge, nothing has changed.

I have a number of questions about how we got to this point, and some of them go deeper than the Taoiseach or the former Minister, Deputy Cowen, in respect of the Department of Justice and Equality and An Garda Síochána. How did the Minister, Deputy Cowen, receive the data from An Garda Síochána? The Taoiseach referred to it as a Garda report or record but he refers to it as a PULSE file. Which is it?

I am holding a subject access request form in my hand. This is how one gets information about oneself from An Garda Síochána. It usually takes between one and three months. I respect the data protection issues here but how was the information provided to the then Minister, Deputy Cowen? Was it expedited for some reason and how is that justified in the case of a Minister? Citizens do not get PULSE files. It is really worrying in terms of the information that has been provided, the process by which this information was provided to a Minister, the channels by which that was asked for and how that was delivered. Many people in An Garda Síochána and their families are watching this and wondering about it. How was the information provided? We need to know if the information that has been provided included any details outside of raw personal data. For instance, are gardaí named? If they are, thousands of gardaí around the country who are doing their job today are deeply worried and concerned that what they put into the system in a PULSE file will be identified as being from them, not necessarily their raw data-----

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