Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)

I wish to raise an issue of perjury. The Statutory Declarations Act 1938 makes it an offence to lie on oath. In addition, the Prevention of Electoral Abuses Act 1923 makes it an offence to malign or defame a candidate in an election. Perjury goes to the heart of the criminal justice system, as indicated by a judge in Limerick last year when a man was sentenced to one year in prison after he had withdrawn his evidence in a criminal trial. The judge said perjury and giving false evidence went to the core of the criminal justice system and the rule of law. In another case of perjury last year the judge said it was an attack on the system of justice.

I wish to raise an issue of a Minister lying on oath. We have become used to Ministers lying, but lying on oath is a new low. The matter concerns the Minister for Defence, Deputy O'Dea, who in a High Court case-----