The manner in which Taoiseach Enda Kenny confronted Martin Callinan on Monday suggests the Garda commissioner was “pushed” into resigning, according to a top legal expert.

Did he go or was he pushed?

Taoiseach Enda Kenny “essentially sacked” the Garda commissioner to divert attention from a Cabinet split, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has insisted.

Ian Bailey’s solicitor has called for a “root and branch” review of the operation of the State’s entire justice system in the wake of the garda phone-taping crisis.

Information on Garda station recordings came to light in 2011. How the practice was dealt with by the various arms of the State is now the issue, writes Cormac O’Keeffe

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar has revealed he is having difficulty “getting his head around” the latest twists in the Garda crisis.

Fianna Fáil has called on Justice Minister Alan Shatter to resign, accusing both him and Enda Kenny of being so caught up in their own spin they were “beginning to meet themselves on the way back”.

The smell that these Garda scandals have been giving off has turned sour. Alan Shatter and Enda Kenny must answer all the tough questions more than satisfactorily, writes Michael Clifford

Garda whistleblower Sergeant Maurice McCabe said he’s “glad” the justice minister has corrected the Dáil record on a claim that he failed to co-operate with an internal Garda inquiry into penalty point cancellations.

Independent TD Clare Daly has accused Justice Minister Alan Shatter of either not realising how serious the Garda tapes scandal is, or of covering it up.

Opposition party TDs have asked is Justice Minister Alan Shatter thinks that “people are stupid” and said he is no longer “fit for office” after a series of excuses over the whistleblower affair.

WHAT’S at stake is the most fundamental issue: trust, belief and faith in the justice system.

The justice minister said it was “unfortunate” that his department officials did not inform him of a letter relating to the recording of phone calls at Garda stations until two weeks after they received it.

IF the justice minister had given a more credible and more contrite explanation to the Dáil yesterday morning on his handling of information surrounding telephone recordings in Garda stations, then he might have retrieved some of his lost political capital.

Fianna Fáil TDs lined up last night to insist crisis-hit Justice Minister Alan Shatter resign immediately, saying his Dáil apology was only made “to save face and save your own skin”.

A blistering attack was yesterday launched on Alan Shatter claiming the administration of justice was in crisis due to his “actions, inaction and incompetence”.

IT WAS Shatter-Day Night Fever in the Dáil as, after seven hours of sustained attack, the sly smile on the Justice Minister’s face signalled: “I’m staying alive.”

Justice Minister Alan Shatter appears to have survived another crisis after an apology to two gardaí who blew the whistle on penalty point cancellations eased concerns of his Labour Party coalition colleagues.

Sinn Féin, along with a succession of opposition TDs have questioned Alan Shatter’s explanation as to when he was informed of the existence of the Garda tapes.

The Garda Ombudsman said a report they published in June 2013 — detailing the recording of phone conversations at a Garda station — was a “high-profile case” which had attracted “considerable public awareness”.

The question of who will succeed Martin Callinan as Garda commissioner almost invariably prompts the answer that there’s only one man — or in this case, woman — for the job.

ASKED if the announcement of an independent inquiry into phone recordings at Garda stations was an attempt to divert attention away from the Justice Minister, a Government spokesperson said it would be one of the “more elaborate distractions” ever used in Irish politics.

THE furore cumulating yesterday in the resignation of Garda Commissioner Callinan and the intensifying pressure now on the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, is important.

YESTERDAY morning, the resignation of Martin Callinan was just your bog-standard shocking development. By the afternoon, unfolding events had reached back into history and landed on the shores of Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre, Unprecedented.

The Garda bugging scandal represents such a threat to State security Enda Kenny was forced to take “personal command” of the situation, Finance Minister Michael Noonan revealed.

Yesterday’s startling events, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan’s resignation and Cabinet revelations about widespread Garda telephone bugging, came as close to rendering the acronym GUBU insufficient as any scandal since double-murderer Malcom McArthur was arrested in the home of then attorney general Patrick Connolly in the summer of 1982.

Pressure piled on Justice Minister Alan Shatter to withdraw remarks denigrating a garda whistleblower as a senior Cabinet colleague told him to deal with the issue.

It took just a moment of inattention to rupture the Coalition’s inner circle,says Gerard Howlin

A SHOCK resignation of the Garda boss in the morning. A new investigation launched in the afternoon into the recording of incoming and outgoing telephone calls at garda stations.

Sergeant Maurice McCabe has alleged he is still being subjected to harassment at work over the penalty points issue, the Irish Examiner has learned.

WHAT a day! We all know the old adage that a week is a long time in politics — sometimes it seems a day can be even longer.

With Justice Minister Alan Shatter now taking centre stage, the words that will be spoken in the Dáil tomorrow will be crucial, writes Alison O’Connor

In the past, Garda commissioners became implicated in what were largely political controversies, writes Ryle Dwyer

Legal experts have warned that gardaí could have breached two major planks of the law by recording phone calls to and from Garda stations.

I’M a great fan of the Danish political TV series Borgen. Mostly, as you’d expect, it’s about power.

The body representing Garda sergeants and inspectors has said the spotlight put on the force in recent times has “seriously diminished” morale and demanded that a review of the organisation be expanded to include oversight and accountability.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter only became aware of the practice of recording phone calls in and out of Garda stations around the country on Monday evening, his spokesperson has insisted.

Martin Callinan began work at the Commissioner’s desk in a hurry to manage one of the most complicated security operations ever undertaken in Ireland.

The pilot of the Air France jet which plunged into the Atlantic in 2009 killing 228 people, pushed the nose upward instead of downward during a stall because of false data from sensors, the father of a victim says.

The family of an Irish woman killed in the June 2009 Air France plane crash in the Atlantic which claimed the lives of 228 people has given up hope of her body being recovered.

The crew piloting a doomed Air France jet over the Atlantic did not appear to know that the plane was in a stall, despite repeated warning signals, according to findings in a new report.

Investigators will today reveal precise details of how an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic killing 228 people in 2009.

The bodies of the last 104 people who were killed on the Air France flight that crashed in the Atlantic in 2009 have arrived at a Paris laboratory to be identified.

Flight recorders from an Air France jet found deep in the Atlantic nearly two years after it crashed are readable, experts said today.