While the Government says it still has support for the Garda Commissioner, mayhem prevails in An Garda Síochána.

The Commissioner became caretaker Commissioner in March 2014. The Minister, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, became Minister for Justice and Equality on 8 May 2014. It just so happened that, on that very same day, Garda Nick Keogh made allegations and started off an investigation into the conspiracy to supply heroin on the part of a garda. Three years later, he has not been arrested, nor has the woman involved who was dealing in the drugs. A garda went to the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, back in 2012 and warned him about promoting a certain officer, who, unfortunately, was promoted and has wreaked havoc since. That same garda was recently charged with careless driving after tipping into a tractor and trailer which had no tax or insurance. He won his case, and what has the Garda done? It has gone looking for a judicial review to be taken, which will cost more than €20,000.

This morning we met two gardaí. At 2.30 p.m. today, in a car park out on the Naas Road, a female garda will collect yet another set of discipline papers as part of an ongoing campaign by senior Garda management. This is about an incident that happened 17 years ago. She has been condemned, judged and isolated. The Government says the Commissioner should not be, but members of the force are when the authorities see fit. She has been put through the wringer. She has spent more than 60 days in court, at great cost to the taxpayer. Despite being found unanimously not guilty on all counts in a criminal trial, she is still subject to an ongoing campaign of internal disciplinary inquiries. Two internal inquiries are completed and three are ongoing.

From 2016, I have a decision of the Commissioner, signed by the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn. They recommend that this garda should retire or resign as an alternative to dismissal. These are the same people who have accepted in excess of 14,000 errors last week. That is bigger than the population of Wexford town. This woman is to be fired out of the force, and for what? It is for failing to put on PULSE a crime that was reported, and she also got the very same charge for failing to secure a statement.

There is mayhem. The force is in bits. It is falling down around our ears. The only one in the whole country that is supporting her is the Government. When is this going to change?

I am not going to comment on an individual set of circumstances that the Deputy has raised. It would not be appropriate for me to do so, particularly as I am becoming aware of them for the first time.

Of course, that is the very reason we have organisations like the Policing Authority and Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, GSOC, in place, namely, so they can handle and respond to issues that are of public concern. The Government has been crystal clear, as have the Taoiseach and Tánaiste, across yesterday afternoon and last night in a two-hour debate in this Chamber, in recognising that the allegations and issues that have been raised, especially in regard to the scale of discrepancy between the numbers of breathalysers that were used across recent years, are of profound concern to the Government, as they are of profound concern to a public that depends on An Garda Síochána to be able to implement the rule of law impartially and fairly. That is why the Government yesterday decided on a set of actions to respond to this latest issue. More broadly, what we will be doing now, and the Oireachtas needs to play a role in this, is engaging in looking at the Garda modernisation agenda, looking at the role of GSOC, looking at the template that was laid out by Mr. Olson in the Garda Síochána Inspectorate, which forms part of the modernisation agenda the Garda is committed to, and looking at how this needs to be supported and driven further.

The Government has made very clear that, as part of this, what will be needed is a thorough and overall review of the structure of and the culture within An Garda Síochána that builds on the thinking that has been done to date but acknowledges that, because of the scale of concern that is being raised, a fresh approach is needed in this regard. This is what the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and all in the Government are committed to doing. We support the Commissioner. We support her in her efforts to deal with the issues that are being described. For my part, as disturbed as I am by these facts that have now emerged, what is crucial now is that they are in the public domain and that they can be looked at in a transparent manner. What is finally necessary, and this will happen, is that the Government will put in place a thorough and proportionate response to an issue that we know is causing such disquiet throughout the country.

I do not know whether the Minister is innocently supporting her in this case; I do not know how much he knows. The Minister for Justice and Equality knows plenty about what I have just said.

Does the Minister think it is appropriate for former Commissioner Callinan to have been in Phoenix Park headquarters on several days last week? Does he think it is appropriate that the former Commissioner and the present Commissioner would have access to the whole apparatus of An Garda Síochána, a pleasure that will not be afforded to Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Superintendent David Taylor?

She has set up a team, a serious team, including Detective Superintendent Tony Howard, and the Minister for Justice and Equality has been written to about reservations about that individual. She has brought back retired Assistant Commissioner Mick O'Sullivan and former Chief Superintendent Brendan Mangan. The Minister should ask the Commissioner whether she consulted John Barrett at human resources before she made appointments to her special unit to deal with the Charleton inquiry. John Barrett wrote a letter to the head of legal affairs, Ken Ruane, pointing out the corporate risk to An Garda Síochána in setting up this unit, staffed with personal friends and associates. He suggested a firm of outside solicitors should be brought in to act as a conduit between An Garda Síochána and the Charleton inquiry, but he was ignored.

She is a law unto herself. Does the Minister know why? It is because the Government let her be so. She will remain a law unto herself and the Garda Síochána force is secondary to her interests and concerns. The Government is allowing it to happen. The Government will eventually get rid of her but it will be too late and too much damage will be done.

The Deputy in his initial question raised a set of circumstances to me that I responded to as not being aware of them. What I am very clear on, and the Government is clear on, is that our overwhelming prerogative is the integrity and reputation of An Garda Síochána. It is part of the glue that holds any society together - the respect for and independence of a police force. That is the very reason that, over recent years, in response to many difficulties that have emerged, we have put in place bodies like the Policing Authority. It is the very reason we are now in a situation where the Policing Authority itself is the body that makes appointments at senior level. It is the very reason we have GSOC, and the Government is now engaged in consultation with GSOC regarding whether further powers are merited for that organisation to respond to the cultural change we know is needed. All of this is driven by our acknowledgement of the need for a strong, respected An Garda Síochána that has no shadows or clouds over it.