Alan Kelly
Tipperary North · Labour Party · Ireland
“I have never, in my time in here, nearly 20 years, seen legislation so mental as regards the breadth and depth of issues. It is an A to Z of issues. Many of them could have been Bills on their own, while some of them could have been grouped together. The depth and breadth of issues here, however, is phenomenal.”
“I will not be opposing any amendments. Most of them are very technical, and a few of them are on significant issues. As I said previously, I believe in miscellaneous Bills. I brought them in myself. I have no issue with them, but this is one of the most mental Bills I have ever seen.”
“This is kind of like a repeat speech from when we previously discussed this issue. The motion is erroneous and mean spirited. The real question for the country is where these people are going to go. The options are not there.”
“It was thought that this would happen later, but so many people I know will be so thankful for and welcoming of this aspect of the legislation. They will be in with us later tonight. The issue in relation to counselling notes is one we really had to have so much discussion about. It was a very difficult discussion.”
“I acknowledge what the Minister said about my colleague, Senator Laura Harmon. She came to the Minister in relation to the sex-for-rent issue. I have to acknowledge the fact that the Minister has always commended her on this issue. She has always been a strong campaigner on this issue given her history of involvement in student politics.”
“It shows that they have worked. I do not see why, in the spirit of where we are and after everything we have said about the war in Ukraine, we are actually going to go and take this away now.”
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“I understand there are the people who were working for Bartra - local people and people who have come from all over the world - who have been treated absolutely disgracefully by Bartra. It was put out that they would in some way be able to do this way of the transfer of undertakings and protection of employment, TUPE, regulations. They will have to apply to the HSE now to get on a panel to get in there. Bartra should be looked into by the Minister of State’s Department and the HSE to see how that happened, but that is another issue. I want to know when this will open. That is all I want to know. Give me a date, give me a month. That is all I want to know. Please do that, because I have been here twice now with the Minister of State and I have not got that answer.”
“By the way, this was the same HIQA which was meant to have the review into acute services in the mid-west out this month, which we still have not seen. The review by HIQA of turning this into a nursing home should take as long as it does to snap my fingers. It is the most modern building in Ireland when it comes to nursing homes. At €24 million it would want to be. The issue is when the 50 beds will be available to the 30 or more people from around the locality who desperately need it, because they are stuck in hospitals for months at €2,000 per night to the taxpayer. When will it be open? I need to know that. I understand the staff will transfer from St. Conlon’s. I understand the staff will come from the panels.”
“The Minister of State is one of the more diligent Ministers of State when it comes to trying to be genuine in his answers. I have been asking parliamentary questions for months looking for a date for when this is to be opened. The Minister has not provided me with that and it is the Minister who is responsible, not the HSE. The Minister is answerable to this Dáil in this Chamber and has refused to answer that question. I want that stated on the floor of this House. I have had to chase the Ceann Comhairle. The Minister of State was not able to provide a date, or a month, when the 50 beds will be open. Everything he has said there I know. It might be extra information to him, and I appreciate that, but I know it. I know the HSE has gone to HIQA.”
“We have suffered so much in Nenagh and north Tipperary when it comes to health services. When will this state-of-the-art nursing home, which should have been opened 18 months ago, be fully opened and fully staffed, given the commitments by the HSE and by the Minister of State here previously in March that it would happen in the third quarter of this year? It is now September. I want to know not just when the 18 residents of St. Conlon’s will transfer and the staff will transfer but also when it will fully open, and I do not want to hear any issues about staffing or HIQA or anything else.”
“I was also assured at a meeting attended by his colleagues and about which the Minister of State would have been informed when we have our regional meetings in Catherine Street in Limerick that they had the whole year to get the resources in place to make sure staffing was available, so I do not want to hear anything about staffing not being available. They had a whole bloody year to get the people. There are queues of people on panels to fill this nursing home. Bartra, which was wrongly put in there to run a step-down facility, has now finished. This building is empty. HIQA takes weeks. It would probably take minutes to sign off on this as a nursing home again because it is state-of-the-art. It is incredible. We are very proud of it. I need to know when the 50 beds so many families and so many people need opened will open.”
“There are now quite a number of people in locations around north Tipperary, particularly next door in the actual hospital, who are high dependency - people who need three attendants to lift them out of a bed - who have been there for months and need to get into this nursing home. Following on from what the Minister of State said to me last March and in light of the fact that Bartra has left the actual facility it was running with the HSE for UHL, when will this open? I do not want to know when the 18 residents in St. Conlon's will come across. I want to know that only as a component of this answer because the regional executive officer told me and others that this would come back in a year.”
“We were waiting for 18 or 19 people to be transferred from St. Conlon's to a 50-bed state-of-the-art facility. A total of €24 million of taxpayers has been spent and it is lying idle. As the Minister of State is aware, the HSE took it over. It is a step-down facility. I, along with Councillors Louise Morgan Walsh and Fiona Bonfield and Independent Councillor Seamus Morris, marched with thousands of people through the streets of Nenagh protesting about the fact that so many elderly people could not get access to that home. Some of those who protested have now passed. Those who were there have lost out on using this facility despite paying their taxes all their years.”
“I am glad to see the Minister of State back in here because we spoke about this in March so I am sure he is fully on top of it and has some good news for me. This issue is very personal for me. I have said here before that I fought for this. St. Conlon's Nursing Home was very personal for me. Many members of my family had their last days there. It provided an incredible service and the staff were amazing. However, HIQA wanted to close it because it was not meeting requirements. We had to fight to get funding and a site. I had to work with the HSE, in particular Joe Hoare. We found the site. I got the funding when I was a Minister. Construction started in May 2021, €24 million was spent and it was ready in early 2024. All that is positive. This is where the problems start. I have visited the site. Nobody was being transferred.”
“It had the funds. This was all about high-powered motor vehicles going up and down the motorway and people wanting to monitor who was coming in and out of their communities via those motorways. It took years and nobody would own the data. Through whatever provisions are possible, maybe we could also deal with that issue. Given that there is so much monitoring everywhere now, from a legislative point of view, it should be much easier than it was in the past to deal with that so that such technologies can be put into places that need them. I commend the legislation and I compliment the Minister and his staff. It is excellent legislation which everybody in this House should support.”
“The way in which the community safety fund is run and the process by which applications come through are too complex and arduous. The fund should have categorisations under which various groups should be able to apply. Obviously, it can be indexed by areas that are more deprived or areas that have more crime. It should not matter if they are rural or urban areas because regarding rural crime there are certain requirements for CCTV or other technologies or mechanisms that would probably not exist in a rural area that needs funding and which community groups would be able to apply for. There have always been problems with CCTV on motorways, as I know because I brought in one of the initial community schemes. I think it took eight years to sort out data protection issues as to who is the holder of data. It was insane, bananas, ridiculous.”
“We may table amendments to this Bill to achieve that. While I accept it would be complex legislation and it may not be possible at this juncture to get it legislated for, at least we can have a discussion on what would be required. I think anybody in this State would support CAB's having those powers. When an organisation or people are operating in a way which is diminishing human rights and perpetrating human rights abuses but have assets in our country, it should be possible for them to be seized as well. Obviously, it would require a formula, a methodology and the technical details of how to do that, but we should seriously contemplate doing it. The last issue I want to raise relates to how we use the proceeds of the assets that are seized and then sold.”
“The way in which this legislation helps to freeze funds quicker is also a good idea. The people CAB is targeting and the people we support it targeting have the capacity to frustrate through the legal system. This Bill diminishes that considerably, which is excellent and will really help the work that CAB does. Therefore, we will be supporting the legislation. I will make two brief points. In 2020, my colleague Brendan Howlin introduced an Opposition Bill, the Proceeds of Crime (Gross Human Rights Abuses) Bill, which got to Second Stage. It was based on the Magnitsky Act. For any organisation involved in any form of human rights abuses outside the State but with assets in this State, it proposed to give CAB powers to seize those assets. While this may be more complex to legislate for, it is certainly something we should come back to.”
“Ruairí was asked about where Nora Owen spoke to officials about the creation of CAB. The officials said they would deliberate and come back to them on whether they thought this was a good idea, to which Ruairí is quoted as supposedly saying: You haven't [I will not use the "f" word] listened to what we said. We are going to do this and we are going to make it happen. They did make it happen and it has been incredibly successful, so much so that many other jurisdictions look at what we do here in Ireland. In a modern, liberal society we still have the capacity to have legislation like this that works. The changes being brought about by this legislation are very welcome and probably should have happened before. Reducing the length of time from seven to two years is a good idea.”
“We will be supporting it 100%. I also compliment CAB, its officers and the people who work there. They do very sensitive and dangerous work and their anonymity is important going forward because these criminals and their organisations have long views. It is incredibly important that we protect the people who work for CAB. I want to acknowledge something that shows how politics works at times. CAB came into existence because of Ruairí Quinn, the former Labour Minister, working with the former Minister, Nora Owen, on a suggestion from then Deputy John O'Donoghue. That is how CAB came into existence. It shows that the Government and Opposition can deliver when they work collaboratively. I always remember there was a documentary about CAB - I am not sure which station it was on but it could have been TV3 - where Ruairí Quinn was interviewed.”
“What structural reductions will come in so quickly that they will have a dramatic impact on people watching us here now as to how they can put food and drink on the table?”
“I know the Taoiseach is going be very sad next week when my great county of Tipperary defeats, in fairness, his great county of Cork in the all-Ireland. I just want to condition him for that. I hope that sadness does not permeate elsewhere, particularly as the Government is doing the NDP and the summer economic statement. There has been a bit of conditioning coming from the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach over the past few days. As we know now, there will be no cost-of-living package etc., but the Tánaiste has said that "the budget will look to see how we can structurally reduce the cost base and the delivery of services". Inflation on food and drink is rampant, at 4.6%. Milk is up 14% and beef is up over 20%. I am intrigued.”
“More important, can the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission be asked to look at this gouging which is obviously going on? I also ask for it to investigate the scam that is loyalty cards. They are now absolutely mandatory, not voluntary. Supermarkets should work on the basis of price, quality and service. Now, if you do not engage with giving over your personal data to supermarkets to ensure you have one of these cards, you will be ripped off even further. It is not acceptable. It is a rip-off and it needs to be investigated.”
“I recently met a lady in a supermarket on a fixed income with two adult dependants. She had forgotten her phone which had her loyalty card on it. Panic set in because she did not have it. After we sorted it all out, she told me she could not buy the same groceries on her fixed income as she could a year or two ago. She was quite upset and emotional about it. The CSO today said food and drink prices are up 4.6% compared with 1.8% for everything else, on average, across the country. There is no doubt gouging is going on in supermarkets. I ask the Tánaiste to consider genuinely consider looking into supermarkets having to publish profits; he has a good track record on this. The Labour Party published legislation on that to bring about transparency.”
“We need to change the manner in which we deal with these motions and the way they are scrutinised. Their impacts are colossal. With respect, I urge the Minister to reflect on what I have said today.”
“We are entitled to hear a lot more from the Government about this before we can be expected to make a decision. I think the Minister would appreciate that, and that he appreciates where I am going with this narrative. We have an option. We can examine the proposal and decide to opt in or opt out. If we opt in, we are opting into a system of binding EU law that overrides our domestic law. This is an increasingly important decision that we must make. We cannot continue like this. It will be a disservice to our State, the people who put us in here and the people of the wider country if we continue to deal with all of these issues in the manner in which the Minister has begun to deal with them and the manner in which they were dealt with by the previous Government. This is becoming a real issue.”
“There is no attempt from the Minister to offer even the basic courtesy of identifying the actual protocol to which he is referring. It is a pretty shambolic way of asking the Legislature to pass law. Protocol No. 21 is, in fact, referred to in Article 29 of the Constitution and we had to pass a referendum in order to accept Protocol No. 21. Both Articles 3 and 4 of the protocol refer to the possibility of this State opting into measures adopted by other member states under Title V of Part 3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The only difference between the two articles, insofar as I can see, is that Article 3 is about signing up at an early stage, before the measure has been enacted, while Article 4 is about signing up later, after the matter has been passed.”
“I much prefer and propose that any opt-in motion coming from the Minister's Department should in future automatically 100% stand referred initially to the European affairs committee unless the Dáil orders otherwise. For some reason, the Minister may want that provision but it should go before the Committee on European Union Affairs first. I do not believe that what we are doing today is the way the Dáil ought to conduct its business, especially when it is important constitutional business. We were told at the last minute that one of these motions had been withdrawn and we were down to three. The Minister's explanation is pretty terse and dismissive, and he says no more than that he might “reflect” on the discussion as to whether an opt-in under Article 4 instead of Article 3 of Protocol No. 21 would be preferable.”
“As regards these motions coming from the Department, the record seems to show sometimes these were referred to a committee. There is no consistency in this; I have looked it up. They were referred to a committee for prior consideration and then other times like today they were not. The reality is that some of these motions are important. I will go as far as to say they are more important than many of the Bills which come from the Minister's Department. They have a bigger impact and remember, they are absolute; they cannot be challenged. My point is that these motions deserve and require greater scrutiny. They need hearings, evidence, analysis and discussion, but all of that is bypassed if the Minister decides instead to bring the motion directly into the House without any prior examination in committee.”
“It will escape constitutional scrutiny as EU law because the two Houses have on a day like today - a Thursday afternoon at the beginning of July in 2025 - opted into a proposal of EU law and opted out of the details of the Irish Constitution. We need to remind ourselves that the UK was always suspicious of justice initiatives coming from Europe on immigration. As we have a common Border and a common travel area with the UK, we have historically largely gone along with the UK's opt-in or opt-out decisions. Now, in light of Brexit, it is not so obvious how we will address the issues we are talking about today, particularly in the field of immigration. It seems we are getting more and more of these proposals from the Department of justice in this way.”
“With regard to the UK and Ireland, an opt-in or opt-out approach to proposals it had in mind for justice, home affairs and Schengen applied. We again amended our Constitution. We are now enabled to opt in to proposals from Europe on justice and home affairs if, and only if, both Houses of the Oireachtas give their approval. That is what brings us to today. It is important to realise what this approval actually means. It means not only that law arrives in this State that is in some formal sense unconstitutional, given it has not originally been enacted by the Oireachtas, but also that the law, once enacted, cannot later be tested by the courts as to its compatibility with the Constitution on any grounds, including human rights grounds.”
“We had to join up to a system which provides that when EEC treaties require us to apply EU law, the European law - and not Irish law - must be applied by an Irish court, even if it conflicts with Irish law or the very same Constitution. The Minister knows this. I do not necessarily have a problem with that; it is the basis on which the European Union was built. I also have no problem with the certainty that we need to be very vigilant in patrolling the borders between EU competence and our own domestic Irish competence. We have to be extremely vigilant on this. Originally in 1972, we gave a constitutional override to any EEC measures that are necessitated by the obligations of our membership. As we know, at a later stage the EU developed.”
“By way of background, we need to remind ourselves that Ireland is a sovereign state and that we required an amendment to the Constitution in 1972 in order to join the EEC, as it was then. This was required not just to vote in favour of the European project but because the EEC as a project is not, in a formal sense, compatible with our Constitution. The Constitution - this is important - is written on the basis that all laws come from here - the Oireachtas - and are interpreted by the Irish courts. The executive power belongs to the Government of which the Minister is a part. It is a Constitution that was enacted by and belongs to the people. When we joined the EEC, as it was then, we were required to create an exemption.”
“Finally, the last proposal states it is accepted that if the war in Ukraine continues in a protracted fashion, the temporary protection directive as we all know it must eventually end. A non-binding Council recommendation is proposed as an important tool to support and co-ordinate an EU-wide exit from temporary protection. To be honest with you, this strikes me as a form of EU nimbyism. The withdrawal of the other motion, which I referred to earlier, is frankly disgraceful. The slipshod practice of the Department regarding these issues is something I had hoped would discontinue. We as legislators, on behalf of the people, need to deal with these serious issues in a much more considered way.”
“Transit through a safe third country before reaching the EU could be considered a sufficient link. The safe third country concept could be applied under an agreement or arrangement with a safe third country to ensure the examination of requests for effective protection in that country. This rings familiar in the context of the arrangement the UK had with Rwanda. It is the same thing. The third proposal would broaden the category of countries to which we could return a failed IPA applicant to include not just the country of origin but also countries of former habitual residence; first countries of asylum; third countries where the individual has the right to reside on an interim basis; and third countries where there is a bilateral or EU-level agreement in place.”
“I encourage the Minister to look at those statistics. The second proposal would change the rules around safe third countries. This concept allows member states to decide that an application is inadmissible if the applicant cannot be returned to the country of origin but could receive effective protection in a third country that is considered safe for the applicant. Currently, the law requires there be some reasonable connection between the applicant and the third country concerned. You could not reasonably deport an Indian national to Kosovo just because they would be safe there. Is that reasonable? The EU wants to change this rule by proposing an amendment which provides that a connection between the applicant and the safe third country will no be longer mandatory.”
“Outside of the EU, it will also designate Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Kosovo, Morocco and Tunisia as safe countries of origin. I appreciate that Pride Month is over now but bearing in mind that the International Protection Act requires protection be given where there is a risk of prosecution on grounds of sexual orientation, is it not relevant to a safe country designation that, for example, in Egypt same-sex activity is punishable by up to 17 years of imprisonment with hard labour, fines and deportation? Is that not relevant? As regards European Union candidate countries, ILGA-Europe publishes an annual rainbow Europe review of the human rights situation in every European country. According to its recent review, Türkiye comes third with a score of 5%, ahead of only Russia and Azerbaijan, etc. and Georgia is sixth last on 12%.”
“It is concerning how we got to this stage today where we are dealing with these motions in the manner in which we are dealing with them. Frankly, it is unacceptable that we are dealing with such important motions in this haphazard way. The fact one of the motions had to be withdrawn by the Minister at the last minute just goes to show how shoddily this issue is being dealt with. Why was this proposed to be dealt with here and then 48 hours later it was taken off? The Minister might explain that to the House. The first of these motions would designate all EU candidate countries as safe countries of origin. This will include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Türkiye and Ukraine.”
“I recently met MABS and was taken aback by the range of issues people had. I have listened attentively to what the Minister said today about cost-of-living measures. I acknowledge those actions. In the past three years, however, there have been a range of one-off cost-of-living measures in budgets, which have been welcomed. I want to get all the nonsense out of the way and ask definitively if the Minister for Finance is saying there will be no one-off cost-of-living measures in this year's budget. There will be nothing for people with disabilities as there was in the past, or the fuel allowance for older people, double child benefit for families or energy credits for households, etc. Will the Minister confirm to the House, because there has been so much speculation and narrative, that there will not be any of these?”
“We need a sectoral agreement to pay workers properly. We need a regulatory regime that ensures these people are not let down and nursing homes and the standards they have to maintain do not fall through the cracks.”
“We also need to start giving consideration to our demographics, in particular how many people will be over the age 65, 70 and 80 in the years to come. We are not prepared for this. I speak with a lot of knowledge on this. We are not preparing for issues relating to more and more people living longer and having dementia. The type of care we provide also needs to change. Many public nursing homes have to take high-dependency patients purely because private nursing homes cannot, in some cases, take them or, perhaps in a minority of cases, will not take them, something the Minister of State knows. I know this because I have tabled parliamentary questions, the replies to which show that, in many cases, people are left in hospitals for months, if not years. Collectively, we need large-scale public investment in nursing homes.”
“This is when things fall through the cracks. We have a real problem in this country when it comes to managing nursing home care and care for the elderly. We need a complete reboot of the statutory home care scheme to support people to stay in their homes. There is the scandalous issue of the thousands of under-65s who are left in nursing home care. There are practical measures we need to take. In the new national development plan, we need massive public investment in public nursing homes. We need one in Roscrea. It has been promised for decades. To be fair to the people of Roscrea, I do not think there is any town in Ireland that is more deserving of a proper nursing home to replace the Dean Maxwell. We need them all over the country.”
“What was shown on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme - well done to those who made it - was disgraceful. We have many fine private nursing homes, but when we allow the development of a for-profit model for investors - there are large-scale investors in a large proportion of these nursing homes, as the Minister of State knows - that have borrowed money at low interest rates and there is no sectoral agreement on workers, we are looking for trouble. We have a lax regulatory regime whereby HIQA simply does not have the powers in respect of this sector that it should have, as the Minister of State has acknowledged, to be fair. The "RTÉ Investigates" programme happened because we let it happen. HIQA was in nursing homes not long before the programme was made and it took a significant period of time before it reassessed one.”
“We need to do so through a regulatory framework that exists, an economic framework that is viable and planning guidelines so that local authorities are not looking at this and saying they want to do the right thing from a climate change point of view but they literally do not have a clue or any guidance on it. I know the new Coimisiún Pleanála has basically said it needs advice from the Government in regard to the gas plant proposed for liquid gas in Foynes. Something similar needs to happen here. An coimisiún also needs to tell the Government in this regard that it cannot make decisions unless regulations and planning guidelines are in place.”
“We need regulations in relation to a whole range of different things such as emissions and noise among others. However, we also need spatial planning. There is a tariff required here for how things are going to operate. None of this is done, and yet we are expecting local authorities to process planning applications on this in isolated rural areas where massive industrial plants will be put in place. It is nuts; it is crazy; it is bananas; it is just stupid. I support this technology, but I want to see a plan where we know spatially and geographically where we need to put all of these, what size we need to put in each place, what tariff will be in place to make it economically viable, and what type of waste is going into all of these plants.”
“I am aware of the group. I also have a degree of sympathy in the sense that I believe the previous Government, of which the Minister of State was not part, did very little on this. The new biomethane group was set up. However, I would like the Minister of State to answer the following. When will the regulatory framework be put in place? What are the timelines on it? She has not told us. Second, in regard to planning, every county development plan in Ireland says something different on this. I have gone through a few of them and they say totally different things. How is that right? How can a national strategy be implemented spatially, and there is a spatial element to this given the nature of our agricultural country, when there actually are no planning guidelines?”
“We also need to look at the whole issue of food production and how this will impact food production into the future. This needs a mapping plan. It also needs a regulatory plan and planning guidelines. None of this is in place. I have no doubt, as the Minister of State represents a rural area, that it will come to her home as well. Communities up and down the country are basically saying they respect that these technologies are needed and that we have targets to get as a country. However, let us not put the cart before the horse. Let us put in place the regulations, planning framework and the totality of what is required here on a national level, and then we move. At this moment in time, it is impossible for communities to actually do that.”
“We really need to look at how we are going to ensure there is a system in place for the regulation and planning of these. We also need to look at the economic modelling of them; what tariff is going to be in place; how many of them we need; how much they should be spread geographically with regard to our agricultural production across the country; where are they needed more than other places; what types of locations they should be in; or whether they should be urban or rural, on the edges of towns, out in small and isolated areas. We also need to look at the whole issue of regulation as regards European law, the water framework directive and the nitrates directive; how health and safety will come in here; and the role of the EPA, and the fact that the EPA does not have the regulatory powers with regard to this area either.”
“However, we also need to ensure communities understand and have rules around which they can engage on where these plants are going to be put in place, and that is not happening. With regard to a number of these plants, whether they are currently economically viable is very questionable. The locations where some of these plants have been proposed are being fought across the country because there is a lack of public and community engagement. I have been a local TD and public representative of various strands for the last 20 years. The developer of this industrial plant just outside Nenagh, where I am from, never came near me. He may have gone to other Deputies but he did not come near me. The community has not been engaged with in any way, shape or form that is worth talking about.”
“I was at a public meeting in Ballymackey outside Nenagh recently with other public representatives, and the idea of putting an industrial-scale plant into a small location like that, where you have to stop on the road to let another car pass, is absolutely bananas. It does not have the infrastructure for it. I actually believe in these renewables and in this whole technology but given that we are going to have between 200 and 250 of these plants all over the country, we have to start asking serious questions about why we have not got regulations on this before we start doing it. Why have we not got planning guidelines on these before we start doing them? It is absolutely incredible that in 2025, we do not have planning guidelines or regulations regarding this technology, which we need.”
“I thank the Minister of State for being here but I have to start by saying the tradition of Topical Issues being dealt with by the appropriate Departments and Ministers needs to come back. It is not fair on the Minister of State, Deputy Harkin. She is not in that Department. It is a retrograde step that any time there are Topical Issues here, the chances of having a Minister from the Department are few. There are three Ministers in this Department and not one of them could be here in front of the House. I do not think it is right. I raise the issue of biogas plant across Ireland. We have a commitment with regard to 5.7 TWh of production by 2030.”
“The Garda Commissioner has confirmed it was sent to Fiosrú on 21 May, so I do not get how that was said on 10 May. More importantly, I believe there is a real issue here for Fiosrú, a new organisation commencing its work. I said in this House that GSOC had lost all credibility because of the way it was dealing with cases. Fiosrú has an opportunity to start afresh but this is a case that needs to be looked at. There has to be an investigation in this case. I commend the Minister because he rang me about it. He did the right thing when it came to the Shane O'Farrell case. He now needs to show courage in the Evan Fitzgerald case. I will commend and thank him if he does so.”
“Miraculously, considering the length of time numerous investigations by this organisation have taken over many years, it turned this around in three weeks. That is not what happened. There was no investigation. If there had been, surely all the gardaí involved would have been interviewed, and so would many others. Indeed, I might have been interviewed myself. The journalists might have been contacted but they were not. The Garda Commissioner has been asked to send details to the justice committee of what was sent to Fiosrú. I look forward to seeing that. I presume it was the file on the case and possibly the newspaper articles by John Lee about the case. The Minister's Department said on 10 May that it was aware of the case but could not comment because it had been sent to Fiosrú.”
“I appreciate the fact he has acknowledged that and that he took those calls, but surely under section 36(1) of the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024 the Garda Commissioner should have done so because the Minister did not have a clue. Maybe his Department knew; I do not know that. In fairness, the Minister, I gathered from the tone of the call, did not know. I am not saying he did not have a clue in a derogatory way. I am saying he genuinely did not have a clue, in fairness to him. There were reports of a manifesto on a USB key left by Evan. I understand there is no manifesto. Why was that put out there? The Garda keeps saying this issue was investigated by Fiosrú, the new GSOC.”
“The true source of the firearms and the fact they had been rendered useless were relevant to the bail decision, the judicial process and judicial discretion. The Minister needs to deal with this. This is not going away. The follow-up by An Garda Síochána since Evan Fitzgerald took his own life is also worrying. The briefings from security sources that people like me and Senator McDowell - and I hope others will take an interest in this now - should not be speaking up on this issue and that such commentary was manna from heaven for organised crime groups is insulting to both Chambers. We are entitled to ask legitimate questions. I think I have said enough to show these are legitimate questions. Why did I have to tell the Minister about this? He has admitted I rang him in relation to this case.”
“There are no legitimate circumstances when the Judiciary is deliberately kept in the dark by misleading evidence concerning the substance of what precedes the exercise of the judicial function. If controlled delivery involving deception is legitimate and justified to produce evidence of guilt, once the evidence is brought into existence, the right to deceive falls away when the judicial function is invoked. The judge is entitled to expect the whole truth to be tendered in evidence, as required by the oath. In this case, informing the judge that the source of the firearms was under investigation was not true. The source was known to the Garda. The untrue evidence tendered was intended to conceal the truth from the court and the persons charged.”