Since the publication of the second Morris report on events in Donegal we have tried to get the Government to honour the report's one major recommendation, namely, to review the Garda Síochána Bill.

The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has adamantly and arrogantly refused to do as Mr. Justice Morris recommended. He has taken the position that he knows best. The man who was the greatest critic of the "nanny state" turns out to be the biggest nanny of them all. According to what we hear on the radio we have extracted amendments from the Minister that will hopefully improve the Bill but do not meet the requirements set out in the Morris report.

Regardless of what the Minister is saying to the Taoiseach, will the Taoiseach please concentrate on this matter for a second? The published list of amendments concerns pages 1 to 18 of the Bill. The Bill is 92 pages long. The Minister has published the amendments to page 18 — he should not behave like a schoolboy now, showing his homework to the master——

It is unfinished homework.

It is very late homework.

There are amendments to page 18.

Deputy Rabbitte is the boy who left his satchel at home.

It is a change from being a bully boy in the school yard.

There are 92 pages in the Bill and now facsimile machines are beginning to spurt white pages in no order, one here, one there, and the large amendments the Minister announced on radio have not yet been published. We are being asked to debate Report and Final Stages of this Bill without even having seen the amendments. This is the way the man who so often lectured us is treating this House and legislation on such an important matter.

Why does the Taoiseach propose that this House should adjourn on 1 July? This is unprecedented in my memory. We would have plenty of time then to give this serious Bill the attention Mr. Justice Morris said it requires. What possible excuse is there for adjourning this House on 1 July, except that the Taoiseach and his Government want to escape this Chamber?

I want to ask two questions of which I have given the Taoiseach prior notice. Did the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform seek the removal of the Garda Commissioner following the second Morris report?

That is an outrageous allegation. There is no substance in it. The Deputy has no principles.

The Minister is not involved in this question. Leaders' questions are directed to the Taoiseach.

I did not make any allegation. I asked a question and I am very interested in the impact it has on the Minister.

It is like the question "When did you stop beating your wife?". That is an outrageous allegation.

The Minister should allow Deputy Rabbitte to continue asking his question.

The Ceann Comhairle should throw the Minister out of the House.

Has the Taoiseach received a note since yesterday on whether the current Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell or his predecessor, Deputy O'Donoghue, told an untruth to the House? Deputy McDowell said he had not received the Carty report, which got him off the hook in terms of the advice he gave Deputy O'Donoghue, and gave him justification to resist the inquiry. Deputy O'Donoghue unfortunately told Deputy Howlin a year earlier that he had received the Carty report. Has the Taoiseach established which of them was telling an untruth to this House?

Deputy Rabbitte has asked three questions. We have now published all the amendments in full. They are all here, completed and before the House. That is in line with what we were asked to do. We were advised to wait until the debate before publishing the final amendments.

There is a guillotine on the Bill for tomorrow.

We have done as we were asked: the debate was held last week, the second Morris report was published the previous week and the Minister has taken both of these into account. We have a long debate on the Garda Síochána Bill. The heads of the Bill were published and a consultation process was initiated.

The heads of the Bill were published two years ago.

We received and examined a report from the Human Rights Commission. We had a lengthy debate in the Seanad. We had one of the longest Second Stage debates in the history of the Dáil, followed by an extensive Committee Stage debate. The Opposition asked that the two Morris reports be debated before Report Stage. We have done all of those things and the debate is about to conclude.

The amendments set out a new statutory duty to account for members of the Garda Síochána. The Minister has listened at length and conducted a detailed review of all the issues. I can go through the amendments, but I presume it is not necessary with only two minutes to do so. However, they set out to strengthen the Bill's provisions regarding the system of promotions for gardaí and the change in methods of appointment for the new Garda audit committee. They also strengthen the Bill's existing provisions regarding the accountability of the Garda Commissioner, make clear the Commissioner is fully accountable to the Minister, strengthen the Bill's existing provisions obliging the Garda Commissioner to supply the Minister with information of significance relating to policing, and the list goes on, including not only significant issues raised in the Morris report but those the Minister identified through his own consultation and review.

On yesterday's question, I read what the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, and the current Minister, Deputy McDowell, said last week, which I had not done yesterday. The latter outlined the sequence of events regarding the furnishing of information by the gardaí during Friday's debate. He made clear that the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy O'Donoghue, behaved impeccably throughout. The Garda Commissioner appointed Assistant Commissioner Carty to examine the handling of the original investigation carried out into the death of Richard Barron. The Assistant Commissioner completed his investigation, which turned out to be extremely complex. He forwarded the file to the DPP for consideration of criminal charges against individual members of the Garda. In August 2000, the then Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Noel Conroy, forwarded to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform a summary of Assistant Commissioner Carty's report. It was clearly felt that, as the Minister pointed out on Friday, no doubt in good faith, it would not be appropriate to forward the full report, as it was central to a criminal case.

The former Minister, Deputy O'Donoghue, pointed out in a series of oral parliamentary questions during 2000 and 2001 which he showed me overnight that he had received a report of the investigation from the Garda Deputy Commissioner — not the Carty report, which was the point that Deputy Rabbitte was making yesterday — and had serious concerns about the behaviour of the gardaí in Donegal. In the context of determining what action was appropriate on foot of those serious concerns, the Attorney General repeatedly requested sight of the Carty report, as did the Minister. There was therefore no contradiction in what the two Ministers said last week.

There was a total contradiction.

There was none whatsoever.

The report was not provided to the Attorney General or the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform by the Garda authorities at that stage on the basis of pending criminal cases. A partial version of the Carty report was eventually furnished in November 2001, the same month in which Shane Murphy, Senior Counsel, was appointed to review the matter. The complete Carty report, as was stated last week, including appendices, was not furnished to the Minister or the Attorney General until the very end of January or early February 2002. The point that Deputy Rabbitte made yesterday therefore falls.

What about the further advice?

Allow Deputy Rabbitte without interruption.

Just in case Deputy Rabbitte comes back, there was no truth whatsoever — not a shred — in the allegation that the Minister had called for the resignation of the Commissioner.

The Taoiseach and Ceann Comhairle will recall a date in 1989 or 1990 when a predecessor of the former told the House that "no such meeting" had taken place. Now the Taoiseach is engaging in the same sort of semantic blather regarding the Carty report. The question from Deputy Howlin was whether the Minister had received the Carty report and what he proposed to do with it. The Minister led him to believe that he had received it and that, as a result of it apparently not bearing out the allegations made, he felt justified in shooting down any investigation, which was the advice from the then Attorney General.

It is entirely a matter of semantics whether it was a summary of the report or the report itself. What the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform has said is that it was the report minus the appendices, which would have been the witnesses' statements. Regardless of whether it was a summary, partial, or full, Assistant Commissioner Carty's report would have borne out the gravamen of the allegations in Donegal. There is no doubt that it would have borne it out.

The Deputy's time is concluded.

Yet the Minister shot it down. Regarding the long consultation on the Bill and its heads, the debate in the Seanad and the Human Rights Commission, all that had been done when Mr. Justice Morris drew his conclusions, and is nonsense and irrelevant. Mr. Justice Morris was looking at the Bill after that entire process had been completed, and he said it was inadequate and needed to be reviewed. Given the manner of production of last-minute amendments, some of which we have not even seen yet, there will be no opportunity for this House to scrutinise them and no opportunity for a proper debate. It is all on Report and Final Stages, which is a disgraceful way to deal with legislation, to treat this House and Mr. Justice Frederick Morris——

The Deputy's time is concluded.

It is a disgraceful way to treat the Garda Síochána and a disgraceful attempt by the Minister, Deputy McDowell, and his predecessor, Deputy O'Donoghue, to blame the Garda authorities for not giving them the Carty report when in fact Mr. Noel Conroy had given them its essence. They both had it and colluded to cover it up in this House as an excuse for not conceding an inquiry.

The Deputy's time is concluded.

Those are wild allegations.

Everything is "wild".

Deputy Rabbitte knows that is entirely untrue.

I do not.

The Carty report was not given until late January or early February 2002.

Publish what was given.

I am answering Deputy Howlin's leader. He has had plenty of time to talk about these issues.

The Carty investigation and its distillation, as the Minister has said on the record several times, was done by the then Deputy Commissioner Conroy. It was not done by Mr. Carty, and it was not even the Carty report.

What has that got to do with it?

The Attorney General stated many times to the Minister, and put the point forward himself, that he could not act until he had the full report. When that full report was prepared, both he and the Minister acted.

They told me that he was screaming for it.

Deputy Howlin, please allow the Taoiseach without interruption.

It is entirely false to get a few dates and try to cobble something of that sort together when the Minister has made matters absolutely clear. To try to say the Minister is doing anything other than being entirely supportive of the Garda Síochána by introducing a modern Garda Síochána Bill, having gone through a detailed process and taken account of the issues with which the public, Mr. Justice Morris and this House are concerned in a lengthy debate is fatuous. The criticism is because, having listened to all that, he should have come forward.

Deputy Rabbitte has called the Minister arrogant. If he had not listened to any of the debate and gone through the entire process, introducing amendments beforehand, the Deputy could have said that about the Minister. However, he has waited, listened and had one of the longest debates in the history of the State before bringing forward amendments; yet he is still being described as arrogant. That is an entirely unreasonable approach.

I call Deputy Sargent.

What about the amendments on Report Stage?

The Taoiseach knows there are 44 pages of amendments.

Please allow Deputy Sargent without interruption.

Perhaps I might ask the Ceann Comhairle if he has received a letter from me regarding time on Leaders' Questions. I would like to discuss it with him later.

I have received a letter from the Deputy and brought it to the attention of the other leaders. For the benefit of the House, we are now almost 11 minutes over time.