Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

Fair dues to the Senator. It is important that we are sceptical of these. However, I believe the Senator knows where I am coming from in that regard. I do not believe I need to add much more.

I found most of the contributions very enlightened. It is good to see how the Upper House is performing its duties. I accept that people are acting in good faith. Senator Regan obliquely referred to a dilemma. Nobody really expected that it would emerge at the tribunal that the loadstone or core document that occasioned the establishment of this tribunal was based on a concocted document. That is the harsh reality. I am not suggesting it was not good that the tribunal started its work. Clearly it has been very good because we discovered things that we could not even have imagined before it started its work. However, we cannot escape the essential fact, which is a moral point, that the core document at the foundation of this public tribunal — worthy and all as its work is — was a fraud. While I am not particularly equipped to say this, it has been said to me by many eminent people that it had the effect of nearly ruining and calling into question the illustrious careers of two senior and good officers who gave great service to the Garda Síochána.

That is a very serious issue that we must all consider. We must all learn the lessons from that. We are all for transparency and accountability and for using, standing over and defending our privileges as Dáil Deputies to raise issues of public importance. However, there must be some sense of proportion and sophistication. We cannot always return to the notion, as public representatives, that public disclosure is the most important factor. On the basis of a limited ten-year membership of the Dáil and limited experience as a Minister of State——