Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 18:

In page 44, to delete lines 31 and 32.

This relates to the requirement on the Garda Commissioner to provide information to the Minister. I respectfully suggest that it tightens up the information that is to be provided to the Minister by the Commissioner. It needs to be tightened up because it is open to abuse, and I say that because it has been abused in the past. I have not been a Deputy for long and I am sure that someone like Deputy Howlin could point to many more abuses than I can, but I recall one of the Minister’s predecessors, Mr. Alan Shatter. He was actually one of the more reforming justice Ministers, and he should be acknowledged and heralded for that. It is not unfair to him or to Mr. Mick Wallace, then a Deputy and now an MEP, to suggest that they did not have the cosiest relationship in the world. They were on prime time television – I believe they were on "Prime Time" itself – one night and Mr. Wallace was criticising Government policy, as is the want of the Opposition, when Mr. Shatter said that Mr. Wallace had been stopped at the Five Lamps in Dublin. The Minister may know where the Five Lamps are. They are on the way to Croke Park. It is a while since either Clare or Meath were in an All-Ireland final, but both of us live in hope-----

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