Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

On 13 October last, members of the public and the press and witnesses for Mr. Kieran Hartley, who was the defendant, were excluded from a courtroom by gardaí. Mr. Hartley was making allegations of serious Garda misconduct in the case. When the exclusion of the public from the courtroom was questioned at the time, one garda said that the gardaí had been directed by the court not to allow anyone in.

The Garda press office said the District Court judge had made an order that a voir direwas to be heard in the case and, therefore, nobody was to be allowed in. The Courts Service was clear that the judge did not give any direction to exclude the public. The digital audio recording of the court will confirm this. Last week, the Garda Síochána changed its story. It said people had been inadvertently excluded from the courtroom and accepted this was not at the direction of the judge. It stated a letter of apology had been issued to the judge. This is quite a serious matter for justice not to be done in public at the supposedly inadvertent decision of the Garda. Does the Taoiseach agree that an internal inquiry is entirely inadequate for this and that an external inquiry is necessary to find out how this happened and ensure it cannot happen again?

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