Results 8,801-8,820 of 10,245 for speaker:Jim O'Callaghan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: I thank the witnesses for attending the meeting. I congratulate Ms McPhillips on her appointment as acting Secretary General which is not an easy job. I disagree with her statement that there is a prevalent view about the competence and even probity of the Department. I do not believe that view is prevalent and I certainly do not accept the simplistic political narrative that all of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: The Minister stated in the Dáil last week that approximately 230 documents were discovered. Were they discovered in the affidavits of discovery?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Was a claim of legal professional privilege made in the affidavits of discovery in respect of documents generated in 2014, 2015 or 2016? Does Ms McPhillips know if that was the case?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Was there any claim of privilege made in respect of documents that would evidence paragraph (e) of the terms of reference?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Something that jumps out at me is that they state that the discovery orders were fully complied with but we know that the emails of 15 May and 4 July 2015 were not discovered in those affidavits of discovery. Is that correct?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Do I take it then that when the Department got the order for discovery, the reason these two emails were not discovered to the tribunal was because the Department believed they did not come within the terms of the discovery order?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Do I take it therefore that those two documents were considered in February, March, April of this year but a decision was made that they were not relevant?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Is it correct that a decision was made at some stage that they were not relevant?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: As far as Ms McPhillips and Mr. O'Callaghan are aware, these emails were not discussed in the Department at the time the affidavits of discovery were being sworn.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Do they have any explanation as to why those emails were not considered for discovery?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Do they accept now that those two emails come within the discovery requests that were made in February-April and September?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: But from the Department's point of view, it was asked by the tribunal to discover documents in a discovery order.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: There were specific categories of documents requested.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: When they undertook a strict interpretation of those categories of documents, the emails of 15 May and 4 July did not come within it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Okay. Let us go back to February of this year. If Mr. O'Callaghan had been formulating the Department's affidavit of discovered and somebody had come in to him and said, "Listen, we have these two emails of 15 May and 4 July," would they have been discovered?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: When Ms Phillips states they did not have them, was there any reason they did not have them? Was it because it was sent to the Minister's private secretary?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: Okay. Ms McPhillips made the point that it did not appear to come within the terms of reference. However, the argument being made by the Government last week is that clearly this issue will be investigated by the disclosures tribunal because it comes within the terms of reference when one considers paragraph (e) and (h) together. Would Ms McPhillips agree it comes within the terms of reference?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: I will now ask some questions about the points Ms McPhillips makes in her statement about how it would have been inappropriate for the then Minister to involve herself in the evidence of another party before the commission of investigation. We had the Guerin report. Does Ms McPhillips agree that the Guerin report was to assess the validity of the claims being made by Sergeant McCabe?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: The Guerin report concludes this sergeant is a man of integrity and some of his complaints merit investigation. That was it. When one looks at the terms of reference of the Guerin report, can Ms McPhillips explain - I am aware she was not the commission - of what relevance to the terms of reference of the O'Higgins commission is a challenge to Sergeant McCabe's motivation and integrity?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Functioning of the Department of Justice and Equality: Department of Justice and Equality (6 Dec 2017)

Jim O'Callaghan: I will put it a different way. I suppose it is unusual. The point I find unusual is that Guerin was the filtering process whereby Sergeant McCabe was appraised and it was considered whether his allegations are of substance. On foot of the Guerin report, a decision was made by Government, because of a recommendation by the Guerin report, that there should be an commission of investigation...