What is the Government's opinion of the proceedings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality and, in particular, the evidence of the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality? I raised the point yesterday in advance of the meeting because it was very clear to anyone who was interested that Mr. Purcell would not answer questions on the commission of inquiry, led by Mr. Justice Nial Fennelly, into matters arising from the resignation or forced retirement of the former Garda Commissioner, Mr. Martin Callinan.

It beggars belief that the Taoiseach will not answer questions on his role in the matter publicly. I asked him about this here some weeks ago. It was he who sent Mr. Purcell to meet the former Garda Commissioner. He can tell us what he asked him to say. Yesterday, a long-serving senior civil servant was thrown under the bus to save the Taoiseach. It is incredible that a Secretary General refuses to answer questions before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. How does that bode for the banking inquiry the Government wants to set up? What does it say to witnesses who will come before that inquiry, when they see someone in the employ of the State not answering questions from elected Members of both Houses, who represent the people? It is my view that he has been told not to answer these questions. This will be the end of the Government. The Taoiseach sent Mr. Purcell to the former Garda Commissioner’s house. What did he ask him to say? The Taoiseach will not answer that question publicly, to the media or in these Houses. He has said instead that he will co-operate fully with the Fennelly inquiry.

Three inquiries will cost a minimum of €2 million. Last week, I mentioned a drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, Fampyra, which costs €264 a month. It keeps people mobile, independent and active. From next July the Government will stop paying for that drug. It would cost €3,000 per annum to give a person independence and improve his or her quality of life, yet the Taoiseach feels it is right not to answer questions and to insist on waiting for the report of the Fennelly inquiry. Three inquiries will cost €2 million. What does the Government state to people suffering with multiple sclerosis when it removes this important drug from the drug payment scheme because the Health Service Executive and the Department of Health cannot afford it? The Taoiseach can afford a €2 million cloak in the form of three inquiries.

What happened yesterday evening was extremely serious, but how can we expect Mr. Purcell to answer questions if the leader of the country will not answer questions about his role in a debacle that has brought the justice system to its knees? It is extremely serious. Senator Paul Coghlan can shake his head all he likes.

The Senator is totally overstating the position.

In the cold light of day it is absolutely disgraceful that the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality will not answer the questions of elected Members of these Houses who serve the people.

The Senator is way over time.

I have a degree of sympathy for Mr. Purcell because I have no doubt that the lawyers in the Department of Justice and Equality, in the Office of the Taoiseach and back channels of Government have told him not to respond to any questions relating to the resignation or forced retirement of the former Garda Commissioner and the Taoiseach’s role in it. Yesterday morning, the Leader told me to wait and see what happened because all that I had said was conjecture. What I said yesterday morning happened last night.

The crystal ball was read.

It was as plain as the nose on the Leader, Senator Maurice Cummins’ face what would happen because of how the Government had dealt with this matter.

The Senator is way over time.

If the Government does not get its act together and deal with this issue transparently, it will be one of many incidents that will bring it down before the end of the year. For the Taoiseach not to answer questions to which he has answers-----

The Senator is repeating himself.

-----and for a Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality not to answer questions is unbelievable.

I agree with Senator Darragh O’Brien that the cost of various commissions of inquiry is a matter of concern, but I have already acknowledged that a previous Government established a much better model of inquiry. I think Michael McDowell was the Minister for Justice and Equality who in 2004 established the Commissions of Investigation Act, which has been a dramatic improvement on the very costly system of long-running tribunals of inquiry that went before it. The Government attempted to ensure Oireachtas committees would have powers of compellability, fact-finding and so forth, but the public rejected this in a referendum. The banking inquiry will have to operate under the constraints set out by the Supreme Court.

What example is shown when a senior public servant does not answer a committee’s questions?

The Fennelly commission of inquiry is charged with investigating a practice that apparently went on for some three decades in Garda stations in the State, the recording of telephone conversations.

It is also specifically investigating the resignation of the Garda Commissioner. That is included in that module.

The Senator should allow Senator Ivana Bacik to speak without interruption. He has spoken already.

I listened with courtesy to what Senator Darragh O’Brien had to say. The substance of the Fennelly commission is this practice of recording telephone conversations. It is appropriate to have a commission of investigation-----

It is also investigating the resignation of the former Garda Commissioner. What about that bit?

This practice went on for three decades under a range of Governments. It is certainly true that the Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality sought and it was agreed that the terms of reference would also include the events surrounding the departure of the former Garda Commissioner.

That is the Fennelly commission.

Senator Ivana Bacik is not answering questions on the Order of Business. She is making her own request to the Leader on the Order of Business.

I am trying to assist her. She is obviously mixed up about the different modules.

I simply cannot make a point because I am being constantly interrupted.

Senator Ivana Bacik is to speak without interruption.

The members of the committee asked the Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality last night the questions which it was agreed were within its remit and powers.

They were not answered.

The meeting lasted three hours. I could only attend the end of it because it clashed with another meeting, but it seemed to me there was a reluctance to answer - that is for sure. The Fennelly commission will have the appropriate powers of compellability and fact-finding and I hope full answers on these matters will be given.

The committee also had a two and a half hour hearing with the acting Commissioner of the Garda Síochána and with Baroness Nuala O’Loan, the former Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, at which we heard very important recommendations for reform of policing oversight. That meeting received much less attention, but it was very important. No doubt we will be able to have a debate on the committee’s recommendations on policing oversight and the reform of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission in due course. Baroness Nuala O’Loan agreed with my proposition that we should consider deferring the appointment of a new Garda Commissioner until the independent policing authority is put in place to ensure that it would take on the appointment of the new Garda Commissioner. I am very glad that it will not be an internal process but will be external.

Will the Leader arrange for a debate with the new Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, on developments in the regulation of crèches and child care facilities? I note that a year on from the "Prime Time Investigates" programme which exposed serious problems in the running of crèches, Ciairín de Buis, director of Start Strong, said yesterday there has been very little change.

With all due respect, Senator Ivana Bacik has been somewhat disingenuous about the sequence of events she has attempted to outline. The core of the issue is that the Government decided in setting up the Fennelly commission that it was, as the Senatorcorrectly points out, to focus on the alleged recordings at GSOC, but it tagged on the forced retirement or dismissal of the former Garda Commissioner.

The committee attended by the Senator yesterday should have been allowed to pursue that matter. Despite the fact that people spoke about the compellability issue through a referendum, the Government subsequently introduced legislation to enhance the powers of committees such as the Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality, although it has refused to use it. It is like a dog which does not bark. Those questions should have been asked and answered yesterday. It is not for the Fennelly commission, as that is only kicking the matter to touch.

Serious questions should have been answered by Mr. Purcell. He has admitted that he met the then Garda Commissioner, Mr. Callinan, outside normal office hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and has also indicated that he engaged mainly in telephone calls. I would like him to clarify the events of a telephone call allegedly made by him on the morning after his visit to the home of the then Garda Commissioner in which he allegedly asked him to reflect on the discussion which took place the night before. That visit occurred as a direct intervention by the Taoiseach and Mr. Purcell was requested by the Taoiseach to visit the then Garda Commissioner. What happened at the meeting and what subsequently happened with the telephone call or calls which Mr. Purcell allegedly made the following morning, asking the then Garda Commissioner to reflect on his position? Within an hour or two of the alleged calls, the then Garda Commissioner had tendered his resignation.

These are the questions which the Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality should have been in a position to put to Mr. Purcell and they are the questions he should have been allowed to answer. It is very disingenuous to suggest the Fennelly commission will look at this matter. That is a whitewash.

The imagination of my good friend, Senator Darragh O'Brien, has really run riot this morning. I know he has been blessed with a very fertile imagination, in fairness, and it is buoyed by certain recent events.

It is more fertile than that of the Senator.

Senator Darragh O'Brien mentioned senior civil servants who had done the State some good service.

I agree, but he was thrown under a bus, as it were, by the Taoiseach.

The people concerned have acted with the utmost propriety at all times. The Senator will have to wait. He and his party sought examination of issues in the public interest and we have agreed to that. I agree fully with Senator Ivana Bacik who indicated that the Fennelly report-----

Did the Senator listen to what I said at all?

The Taoiseach-----

I did not interrupt the Senators.

Senator Paul Coghlan to continue, without interruption.

The Taoiseach could have answered those questions here.

The Senator has already spoken. Will he, please, allow Senator Paul Coghlan to continue?

What the Senators are trying to imply could not happen or I believe does not happen between senior civil servants in the State. They cannot be treated as messenger boys.

The Taoiseach told him to go to the Garda Commissioner's house, as the Senator knows.

The Senator cannot go on a rant about it.

Please allow Senator Paul Coghlan to make his contribution. Does the Senator have a question for the Leader?

We believe in due process.

It might have happened in a previous Government's time.

It happened this time - absolutely.

Calm yourself.

The Senator should speak through the Chair.

You are getting carried away; calm yourself.

I am right.

The Senators should speak through the Chair. Is there a question for the Leader?

Of course. I always have total respect for the Chair. Senator ivana Bacik is correct and we can have a debate in due course - or in early course - on all these matters.

It will be in approximately one year, when all the steam will have gone out of it.

Fianna Fáil was for a good while becalmed.

We certainly were not.

It should calm down again, please.

No, we were not becalmed. We never were.

Do not get carried away.