The Order of Business is No. 1, Private Members' business, Civil Law (Missing Persons) Bill 2016 - Second Stage, to be taken at 1.30 p.m., with the time allocated to the debate not to exceed two hours; and No. 1a, motion regarding establishment of a tribunal of inquiry, to be taken at 5 p.m., with the contributions of Senators not to exceed six minutes.

I apologise to Members for the late notice of the Supplementary Order Paper. I did try to speak to Members before the Order of Business about the information regarding the tribunal of inquiry.

I welcome the motion to be taken this evening and the opportunity to debate the terms of reference of the tribunal of inquiry into the Garda. This is one of the biggest matters that has been before the House. It is important that the inquiry commences and that its terms of reference cover all the allegations. The information needs to come out into the public domain. It is important that the truth comes out for the families involved and that they get the justice they ultimately deserve. How they have been treated is appalling. The gardaí involved also deserve to have the truth come out because their reputations have been stained. There are many hardworking gardaí who need to be protected. The truth will come out from this tribunal of inquiry and everyone will be protected.

October last year was the first occasion on which I voiced my concerns about the first-time buyer's grant. At the time, I stated it would not help people get on to the property market and would only increase the prices of new builds. In 2016, house prices rose by over 8% nationwide and by over 5% in Dublin. Today, a report from the ratings agency Standard & Poor's indicates that house prices are set to rise by a further 7% this year, with the Government's help-to-buy scheme playing a massive part in boosting demand.

Boosting demand will not solve the problem. The problem is supply. The severe lack of housing supply is one of many issues the Government has ignored for way too long. There are many actions the Government can take to increase supply, such as looking at construction standards, architect approvals and building regulations for new builds, as well as the vacant sit levies and getting rid of the development levy. The Government needs to be more proactive in getting new homes built in Dublin city and at other locations throughout the country.

According to the Standard & Poor's report, the severe lack of supply could see houses prices grow more than expected as the number of new homes for sale has dropped to the lowest figure in ten years. Last month, daft.ie and myhome.ie reported that just over 42,000 properties nationwide were for sale on their websites in December 2016, the lowest since January 2007. These figures indicate that only around 1% of housing stock is currently listed for sale. A normal functioning market would typically boast a turnover of 4% of housing stock. I was shocked to discover there are only 3,619 properties listed for sale in Dublin. Trinity College Dublin economist Ronan Lyons believes that we need to build 50,000 new homes every year to deal with ever-increasing demand. In 2016, only 14,000 new homes were built. Although we are talking about this matter all the time, I have not seen evidence of any massive impetus or incentives for to builders to increase supply. This matter is the elephant in the room and we have failed to take it seriously. I will keep raising it until it is properly addressed.

Due to professional duties of confidentiality and professional rules on publicity, I have been unable, like many Members, to deal in public with the controversies surrounding the demonisation of Sergeant Maurice McCabe and his family. I remain in that position. Those duties, however, do not prevent me from fulfilling my constitutional and statutory functions as a Member of the Oireachtas regarding the proposal to establish a tribunal of inquiry under the 1921 Act, to examine and report on those matters and on the terms of reference which this House will debate this evening. In that context, I am looking forward to the debate.

It would be wrong for me to refrain from stating in this House that the fairness and appropriateness of establishing such an inquiry, while the Garda Commissioner, Nóirín O'Sullivan, continues to exercise her authority and discharge her functions as Commissioner, is very much an issue.

Hear, hear.

As a former Tánaiste, Minister for Justice and Equality and Attorney General, I am in a good position to form an opinion as to whether it is appropriate for the Commissioner, against whom the gravest of allegations of misconduct have been made and which will now be investigated, to exercise her authority in An Garda Síochána and to exercise her functions while the tribunal is being organised and until it has considered its report. The relationship between the Government and the Commissioner of An Garda Síochána must be based on confidence. In anyone's language, confidence includes a solid belief and a working assumption that the person in question is truthful, reliable and appropriate to be in the position in every respect.

Confidence cannot be said to exist if sufficient doubt exists in the mind of the Government in respect of the gravest allegations to warrant the establishment of a tribunal of inquiry. Moreover, confidence involves an assumption of the truthfulness of a person. When we come to a situation where there is a direct conflict between that person's position as publicly stated and that of Superintendent David Taylor, and if we are operating on the assumption that the Commissioner is being truthful, that necessarily suggests that we are operating on the assumption that the allegations against her are false. That is not the position of members of the public or Members of this House.

It is inconceivable that officers, including senior officers, of a disciplined force should be asked in their evidence to accuse, on oath and in public, of grave misbehaviour the person who is in charge of them day to day or that they be permitted to instruct counsel to cross-examine that person as to her honesty, reliability and suitability for office. It is also wrong in principle that the Garda force in its entirety, which will have a duty to co-operate in finding, presenting and making discovery of all records and evidence in its possession relating to the issues under consideration, should be under the day-to-day control of a person whose suitability for office is necessarily a central issue in that tribunal of inquiry.

Accordingly, I want to state in the strongest possible terms that there is no reason at all for the Government to permit the Commissioner to remain in office and she must step aside either temporarily for the three month duration of the tribunal and until it has reported or else permanently. People in this House have said, and rightly so, that we should not be judge and jury in this matter. The rights of all persons to fairness comes first, including the rights of the public and everybody whose interests are at stake in this tribunal. The determination of the Commissioner to remain in office during the tribunal is neither fair, appropriate nor defensible.

It is not every day that I stand here and agree completely, fully and wholly with Senator McDowell. It is disturbing that the Garda Commissioner is refusing to step aside for the duration of the public tribunal of inquiry. It is even more disturbing that the Government, the Cabinet and their partners in government, Fianna Fáil, feel that this is okay. It is wrong and I would ask all involved to reflect on that and to understand the predicament they put some witnesses in. The mere fact the Commissioner will not step aside and will be left in her position will do a disservice to Sergeant Maurice McCabe and his family. I hope that by the time Senators return to the House next Tuesday the situation will have been resolved and the Commissioner will have stepped aside to allow the tribunal to do the work required to get to the truth.

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, did not answer one question last night in this House. I understand the Minister ran out of time but I and other mothers and citizens of the State need to know that there are not files held by Tusla on our children or on ourselves. We need to be given confidence that this does not happen. The Minister needs to put in place some kind of facility whereby we can check if that is the case, especially those of us who have spoken out against the justice system and against the behaviour of some senior members of An Garda Síochána or who have spoken out against the behaviour of the gardaí in disputes such as at the Corrib gas project and the protests at Shannon Airport and so on.

I also want to discuss the fact we are in the third week of the ongoing dispute at the Tim Hastings Volkswagen garage in Westport. This is the third week where workers and their families have had to stand out in inclement weather to try to engage with management to bring about a resolution. Last week the Leader of the House said it was a matter for the mechanisms of the State, specifically the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and that it was important the mechanisms of the State were used to reach a solution. I absolutely agree with the Leader, but SIPTU members in the Tim Hastings garage have utilised all the industrial relations machinery of the State available to them. This was the third time that SIPTU members had to ballot for strike action in an attempt to get management to engage. In the first instance Tim Hastings Limited refused to attend the WRC to discuss the dispute. The company relented and attended the WRC eventually but no agreement was reached. The management side would not even sit in the same room as the union. The entire conciliation process was held in a side session. As no agreement was reached at the WRC, the next logical step was to refer the issue to the Labour Court, a highly reputable organisation for resolving disputes. Again, management only agreed to attend the Labour Court under the threat of strike action and a hearing was held on 4 November 2016. The Labour Court issued a recommendation on 20 December which said that for the positions genuinely made redundant, the staff affected should be paid an ex gratia redundancy payment of two weeks' salary per year of service in addition to the statutory redundancy and that the parts manger would be given the option of retaining the job or accepting the redundancy.

I ask that the Taoiseach would get involved in this matter to ensure the company, which is in the Taoiseach's constituency, takes heed of the very institutions and mechanisms of the State that he asked people to recognise. I ask that Volkswagen Ireland also gets involved to resolve this dispute in order that the workers who want to can return to work and that the Labour Court recommendations are fully implemented.