Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

I support Senator O'Neill, who has done a valuable public service in raising this issue and I support him in this regard.

Charges and counter-charges were levelled across the floor by a Member. I remind the Member that it was a Fianna Fáil-led Administration which set up the tribunals and the conclusions of those tribunals resulted in several Fianna Fáil politicians receiving jail sentences in some instances. Any suggestion that we, as a party, were reluctant in any way to expose or uncover the corruption that went on in Irish life is disproved by that point in itself.

In the charge and counter-charge, we were asked for examples. I offer the Member one example from his home county. Three men walked into a bank in Tramore. One hustled a young civil servant back into the bank, kicked him to the ground and then shot him in front of his three year old son. The sequel has unfolded in the past two months. When the party of that Member, who is a fine man and a good public representative but I am discussing policy, makes charges, then it is, as one of their people said on television last night, a case of going into murky waters making such allegations.